This week the BBC released Mr Loverman, an eight-part drama that features two septuagenarian Caribbean Londoners who have been engaged in a homosexual love affair since they were teens in Antigua. Perhaps you think nothing of this. But a series with scenes depicting two Black, greying men reflecting on their forbidden romance, declaring themselves “cocksuckers”, and bending themselves into sexual positions occupying a primetime Monday evening slot is worth reflection. Not purely because of discussions about the constraints of compulsory heterosexuality on a generation of Black men, but also the specificity of this drama – the freedom for Black British television to be what it wants to be.
That the show is an adaptation of Booker-prize winner Bernardine Evaristo’s novel would have helped it over the line of “marketability”, not to mention the all-star cast of Lennie James, Ariyon Bakare, and Sharon D Clarke. But the idea that Mr Loverman could find a billing and an audience has never been a given. Particularly since the show is not about the interplay between Windrush-era migrants with a hostile, white society but a more complex and internal exploration of the Black family, class mobility, and secrets. Evaristo herself had been told on publication that Mr Loverman was too “niche” for TV.
But Mr Loverman’s primetime arrival feels fitting when you consider that we’re in something of a golden age of Black British television. The past few years have seen, to name a few, Dreaming Whilst Black, Boarders, Supacell, Queenie, I May Destroy You, Champion, Jungle, Three Little Birds, Black Ops, Domino Day, and Small Axe. These shows have had varying degrees of success, in execution and quality, but what’s striking is that while they’ve often been niche or conceptual they’ve found incredible critical acclaim and a broad audience.
Take Dreaming Whilst Black, (above) a meta-narrative about negotiating film-making and the degradation of Black art. Boarders, inspired by a real-life social experiment to take four Black boys from a deprived part of east London and send them to an elite boarding school. Supacell, where sickle cell trait, which predominantly affects Black people, is the genetic condition for unlocking a range of superpowers. All three of these shows met rave reviews and, crucially, have had second seasons commissioned – the BBC has this week revealed a first look at Boarders’s second term.
Television critic Leila Latif agrees, and says that the outlook for Black British television is incredibly hopeful, though sounds a note of caution. “There’s been some disappointments,” she says. “I think Mood deserved a little more time, Riches deserved a little more time.” Both shows were cancelled after one season, even with Mood winning the Bafta for best mini-series. “But we’re in a space where anything getting past its first season is a struggle. As a whole there’s been promising stuff, because shows have been quite specific to the Black experience and you’d assume they wouldn’t have that mass appeal. But there have been massive hits which are coming back!”
Oddly, there’s much more hope and optimism around Black television in the British market than in America, which has historically led the way. Not only have we got British renewals, there’s also the promise of future shows to maintain momentum. Rye Lane star David Jonsson’s drama Hype, exploring Black culture and the world of fashion retail, is in development, and, of course, we all await the return of Michaela Coel (pictured below) in her new drama First Day on Earth which explores a struggling novelist reconnecting with Ghana, her country of heritage.
Meanwhile, the mood across the Atlantic is more pessimistic. Insecure creator Issa Rae recently commented that after the WGA and Sag-Aftra strikes, production studios found excuses to cancel Black shows (her own show Rap Sh!t was cancelled after two seasons), let go of diverse executives and move towards a more homogenised television market which takes fewer risks.
It feels trite that any discussion on Black cultural industries must be brought back to that moment in 2020, where pledges and promises were made on the back of a Minnesotan Black man’s dead body, but it comes down to the gulf in industry reactions. As Latif says, “there was a little bit more budget to appease people in America, and the huge American budgets were setting people up for failure”. Black British television, on the other hand, has been “more creator-driven, they’ve been lower investment pieces which have found audiences through organic worth of mouth. Critical adoration was allowed to grow for these shows.” That speaks to the success of shows like Supacell – while its budget is unknown its special effects are more akin to 2000s Charmed than the CGI overload we’re accustomed. But that lower investment allows room for imagination and creativity to win hearts over.
While there will always be reasonable anxiety over the state of Black British television (after all, cult classic sketch comedy The Real McCoy gathered dust in the BBC vaults for 25 years) there’s greater cause for optimism than ever before. Even as streaming models rely on instant hit, algorithmically determined success (RIP Kaos) where previous TV models gave creators more of an opportunity to fall into a rhythm, this current wave of success doesn’t feel as contingent on reaction-led moments of over-promise. It would be naive to think these gains made can’t be walked back on. But right now I’m enjoying our new cultural diet of niche, topical, and silly Black television. I can only hope it gets more specific, more wacky, and more “traditionally” unmarketable.
• Jason Okundaye is an editor and writer on The Long Wave, the Guardian’s new weekly newsletter on Black life and culture, launching on 30 October
