The BBC Is Filming Small Island for 2009
Naomie Harris Stars in TV Version of Andrea Levy's Acclaimed Novel
Nov 23, 2008
The two-part 180-minute drama, which portrays the arrival of a young Jamaican woman, Hortense, in post-war London, will feature a top-line cast, including Naomie Harris (Pirates of the Caribbean, 28 Days Later), David Oyelowo (Five Days, The Last King of Scotland), Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre, Capturing Mary), Benedict Cumberbatch (Starter for Ten, Stuart: a Life Backwards) and Nikki Amuka-Bird (The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, Survivors).
Naomie Harris – Emerging Headline Star
For Harris in the lead role, it is further evidence of her continuing rise to major stardom in movies and TV.
The 32-year-old from Finsbury Park in North London had a slow-burning TV career with roles on British dramas such as Trail & Retribution V and White Teeth before appearing in the hit movie 28 Days Later.
Worldwide focus came with her pitch-perfect performance as the sea goddess in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Harris’s lilting Caribbean accent in those movies no doubt owed much to her mother’s Jamaican background.
City of Dreams
Now as Hortense in Small Island, which is currently in pre-production, she will be playing the newly married Jamaican woman who shares her husband’s crumbling attic room in London, city of her dreams, which turns out to be shabby and full of prejudice.
What makes Small Island, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year award and Orange Prize for Fiction, a good prospect for television is that despite its solid literary credentials it has a fascinating, entrancing plotline that could translate well to the small screen.
It follows four characters – Hortense, who leaves her best friend, Celia (Amuka-Bird), behind in Jamaica for the wonders of London; Gilbert, Hortense's husband (Oyelowo); his white landlady, Queenie (Wilson); and Queenie’s husband, Bernard (Cumberbatch).
Riot and Death in London
The year is 1948 and, in the book, Levy’s research and ear for dialect transports the reader right back to the time when landlords would hoist signs that read ‘No Irish, No Coloured, No Dogs’. It also charts Hortense’s journey from village snob, to damaged self-esteem to new self-discovery.
But Small Island is no grim polemic. It is a rich story with compelling characters and great warmth. It also depicts notorious incidents from the period, such as the wartime episode when the US army sought to impose segregated seating in a British cinema, leading to a riot and death.
Andrea Levy's Epic Romance
For Ben Stephenson, the BBC's new Controller of Drama Commissions, Small Island is his first commission in the job. ‘We are thrilled about bringing this epic yet personal romance story to BBC One,’ he said.
Alison Owen, of production company Ruby Television, said: ‘We fell in love with Andrea's beautiful love story, set in this untold piece of our history.’
Paula Milne, who wrote The Virgin Queen, and Sarah Williams, writer of the movie Becoming Jane and the BBC's The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton, have adapted Small Island for Ruby Television. John Alexander, who made Life on Mars and Survivors, is the director.
