The BBC has released a new trailer for Small Axe, the eagerly-anticipated anthology series from Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Shame).
Premiering on iPlayer and BBC One this autumn, the anthology series will tell five different stories set within London’s West Indian community.
According to the BBC, the episodes will spotlight how their “lives have been shaped by their own force of will despite rampant racism and discrimination”.
Black Panther‘s Letitia Wright will star in “Mangrove”, an episode telling the true story of the Mangrove 9, a group of Black British activists who stood trial after clashing with police at a protest in Notting Hill in 1970.
The trial, at which all nine were acquitted of the main charge against them, inciting a riot, became the the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred within London’s Metropolitan police.
In another episode, “Red, White and Blue”, Star Wars‘ John Boyega will star as Leroy Logan, a former superintendent in the Metropolitan Police who was awarded an MBE for his role in combatting racism within the force.
Small Axe was commissioned by the BBC in June 2019 but now feels even more vital and timely in the wake of the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement.
McQueen said when the anthology series was announced last year: “I felt these stories needed to be shared. I wanted to re-live, re-evaluate and investigate the journeys that my parents and the first generation of West Indians went on to deliver me here today calling myself a Black British person. What’s important about our stories is that they are local but at the same time global.”
Noting that the series is named after a proverb immortalised in a song by Bob Marley, McQueen added: “I think audiences will identify with the trials, tribulations and joy of our characters as well as reflecting on the present environment in which we find ourselves. The dynamic nature of the series allows us to confront injustice in the face of adversity hence the proverb Small Axe, ‘if you are the big tree, we are the small axe’.”
Small Axe will premiere on BBC One on 20th November. In the meantime, the episode “Mangrove” will open the BFI London Film Festival on 8th October.
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