Adjoa Andoh knows her history. The Bridgerton star is the daughter of a history teacher, and a self-proclaimed “anorak” on the subject; she has spent her entire life fascinated by the lives of her family, her hometown, and our society. There’s the history of her father, a free-thinking journalist who left Ghana’s biggest daily newspaper for the UK rather than toe the party line in a dictatorship; there’s the great-uncle who lost his arm in the Second World War. And then there’s the story of people of colour in Britain, who have often been “written out” of official histories. “As we all know,” she tells me, “history is written by the winners.” Still, Andoh is quick to correct me when I call her a history buff. “Not buff. Anorak. I claim no expertise whatsoever. I’m just a bit dweeby about it all.”
This small exchange is revealing. There’s a certainty to Andoh about who she is and what she thinks. She’s passionate and engaging – not preachy (although she is licensed as a lay reader in the Church of England) but concrete in her opinions. She’s in Liverpool, moving her camera to show me a view of the Mersey. There’s a historical connection here, too: her grandfather ran away to these very docks from his family of tenant farmers when he was a teenager. She chose this hotel room especially. “I like to sit here and think of that little 15-year-old boy making courageous choices for his life, and think about where our family has gone in the world, and how we all are,” she says.
