diff --git a/mercurial/crecord.py b/mercurial/crecord.py
--- a/mercurial/crecord.py
+++ b/mercurial/crecord.py
@@ -1152,7 +1152,7 @@
             numtrailingspaces = origlen - strippedlen
 
         if towin:
-            window.addstr(text, colorpair)
+            window.addstr(encoding.strfromlocal(text), colorpair)
         t += text
 
         if showwhtspc: