The BBC has announced its upcoming drama slate, and confirmed it has projects on the way from “I May Destroy You” creator and star Michaela Coel and BAFTA-nominated “Rocks” screenwriter Theresa Ikoko. According to Deadline, author Candice Carty-Williams, journalist Dolly Alderton, and “Killing Eve” producers Sally Woodward Gentle and Lee Morris also have shows in the works.
Ikoko is adapting Nikki May’s forthcoming debut novel, “Wahala,” for the small screen. The London-set project “follows three thirty-something Anglo-Nigerian women whose friendship group is infiltrated by the beautiful, charismatic, and super-wealthy Isobel,” the source teases. “Isobel’s arrival creates mounting tensions, unravels bonds, and exposes secrets with shocking and tragic consequences.”
Ikoko has described the show as “’Big Little Lies’ meets ‘Girlfriends’” and as an “amazing celebration of Nigerian British culture.”
Not many details are available about Coel’s new show, but BBC drama controller Piers Wenger suggested it may be linked to the universe of “I May Destroy You,” which sees a young woman dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault and explores modern sexuality, consent, and rape culture.
“It’s truly in Michaela’s head and it’s not for me to second guess that too much at this point. It’s at relatively early stages, but I wanted to let the fans of ‘I May Destroy You’ know that there is a new show coming along,” he told Deadline. “What relationship that show will have with the original series, [is for Michaela to decide]. There’s a relationship between ‘Chewing Gum’ [Coel’s previous show] and ‘I May Destroy You.’ There’s a through line to her thinking. I suspect there may be elements [of ‘I May Destroy You’] but it’s really too early to say anything specific.”
“Killing Eve’s” Sid Gentle Films is working on an adaptation of Cash Carraway’s book “Skint Estate.” The show, tentatively titled “Cash Carraway” will star Daisy May Cooper (“This Country”) as a single mother fighting to escape poverty. Sid Gentle’s Gentle and Morris are exec producing, as is Carraway.
“The show is about a brash yet intelligent working-class single mum who not only lives in extreme inner-city poverty but a state of ridicule and humiliation as she attempts to improve her life,” Carraway detailed. “She’s immoral and shocking and purposefully vile, and swaggerous and quite amazing really – but obviously I would say that as it’s inspired by my life.”
“Queenie” author Carty-Williams has an original series on the way. “Champion,” set in South London, is described as “a love letter to Black British music.”
The show “focuses on Bosco Champion, a U.K. rap sensation before he was jailed. His younger sister Vita has been his personal assistant, running around after him, getting him out of trouble, and hiding his misdemeanors,” Deadline summarizes. “But when Vita’s own talent is discovered by Bosco’s rival, Belly, she steps out of her brother’s shadow to become a performer in her own right, setting the Champion siblings against one another in their quest to both reach the top spot in the charts, and to be the star of the family.”
Carty-Williams is exec producing, Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor is producing, and the series’ writers include Isis Davis and Emma Dennis-Edwards.
Finally, Alderton is adapting her own memoir “Everything I Know About Love” for the BBC. Dubbed “‘Sex & The City’ for millennials,” the show will center on “Maggie and Birdy, best friends since school who land in London to live it large, when the unexpected happens — Birdy gets a steady boyfriend.”
“It’s a messy, boisterous, joyful, romantic comedy about two best female friends from childhood and what happens when they move into their first London house share and the first phase of adulthood,” Alderton said. She is exec producing alongside Working Title Television’s Surian Fletcher-Jones, Tim Bevan, and Eric Fellner.
