“Dreaming Whilst Black”, a new BBC comedy “about a man who quits his corporate career to try to cut it as a filmmaker”, is itself the product of creator and star Adjani Salmon’s decision to leave a steady job to pursue his dream, said Dan Einav in the Financial Times. Salmon’s fictional counterpart is British Jamaican Kwabena, who walks out of a job in recruitment in order to work full-time on his film, a Windrush-era drama. Alas, he finds “a dearth of opportunities for someone with no experience, few connections and dark skin”.
The series sends up the film industry’s “troubling relationship” with race, skewering the superficial application of words such as “diversity” and “inclusivity”, and showing how minority storytellers are compelled to lean into reductive stereotypes to get their work noticed. But it’s often “more breezy than biting, and as whimsically quirky as it is wryly observed”.
Kwabena and his friends come up against a host of “microprejudices”, said Carol Midgley in The Times, but these are “catalogued with wit and a nice light touch”. And the switches between the fantasy life in Kwabena’s head and “disappointing reality” are nicely done.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It’s a confident, funny show that “works as a fable of modern black Britishness and also a tender prayer to the frustrations of the modern creative”, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. The cast is “pitch perfect”, and if the series ends on a tense note, it is “an unfinished one”, suggesting that more episodes may be on their way. “Yes please.”
Watch on BBC iPlayer
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
-
'The United States needs to up its game'Instant opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
'Accepting defeat is Rishi Sunak's only hope of victory'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Royal family website attacked by Russian hackers
Speed Read Pro-Kremlin group claim responsibility just two weeks after King Charles condemns invasion of Ukraine
-
6 thrilling reads chosen by Ken Follett
Feature The historical novelist suggests works by Frank Herbert, Charles Dickens and more
-
Recipe: chicken and ricotta meatballs in broth by Julius Roberts
The Week Recommends A warming soup for autumnal evenings with orzo, crème fraîche and dill
-
Trancoso: a bohemian beach town in Brazil
The Week Recommends This isolated seaside town has an off-the-beaten-track charm
-
A reckoning over looted art
The Explainer Thousands of artifacts in U.S. and European collections were stolen from their countries of origin. Should they be sent back?
-
Properties of the week: European coastal escapes
The Week Recommends Featuring a 300-year-old rustic finca in Alicante and a secluded villa with sea views in Sardinia
-
Marina Abramović at the Royal Academy review
The Week Recommends Exhibition looks back at the spectacular highlights of her five-decade career
-
Fernando Botero obituary: artist of 'whimsical rotundity'
Obituary Colombian painter and sculptor was known for his 'exuberant style'
-
Boys from the Blackstuff review
The Week Recommends A 'powerful' adaptation of Alan Bleasdale's 'masterpiece'
