Miriam Margolyes has outraged audiences by calling a popular Charles Dickens character “Jewish and vile” during an interview with the BBC. The Jewish actor, 83, who is best known for her role as Professor Pomanoa Sprout in Harry Potter , was recording a live episode of Radio 4’s Front Row programme when she made the comment. Speaking to Front Row presenter Kirsty Wark at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival about her one-woman show, Dickens’ Women , which focuses on the works of Charles Dickens, Margolyes was asked which character had captured her attention most when she was young.
In front of a live audience, Wark asked Margolyes who was “the first [Dickens] character who stuck in your head as a child?” Margolyes replied: “Oh, Fagin. Without question. Jewish and vile,” to which the audience laughed and she added: “I didn’t know Jews like that then – sadly, I do now.
” Fagin is one of the antagonists in Dickens’s 1838 novel Oliver Twist . In the preface, he is described as a “receiver of stolen goods”. Margolyes comments were met with outrage on social media, with one person writing on X/Twitter: “Imagine turning on Radio 4 and hearing Miriam Margolyes describe a character as "Jewish and vile" – and the phrase gets a laugh from the audience, rather than an apology from the host.
“Goes to show [that] being Jewish doesn’t make you immune from perpetuating antisemitism.” Meanwhile, other users defended Margolyes comments, with one person writing: .