IS THIS TV’S MOST PROVOCATIVE DRAMA?

‘People from left and right will probably be fuming’

On a shabby city street, people are hanging around, drinking and having fun. Suddenly the party atmosphere is shattered by sirens. Blue police vans appear, disgorging baton-wielding officers as the crowd disperses. Three young men are cornered, two of them slammed up against the vehicle by a policeman. A second officer argues with their friend, hurling insults and shoving him. When one youth tries to calm the situation he is attacked from behind, receiving a sickening whack across the head in a terrifying display of police brutality. And then it strikes you – all the police officers are black and the youths are white.

This is the opening scene from BBC1’S gritty adaptation of British author Malorie Blackman’s interracial love story Noughts + Crosses, being filmed here in Cape Town. For the extras in the street – and the locals watching from doors and windows – it brings back uncomfortable memories of similar things happening the other way around during apartheid. The production team had to discuss the scene with residents, and you can feel the electricity in the air.

‘It’s supposed to be a complete flip of the police brutality videos that you might see coming out of America,’ explains Ian Hart, who plays the father of the book’s hero Callum and his brother Jude, the two youths who saw their friend being beaten. This flip is at the heart of Noughts + Crosses, the first in Malorie’s series of novels for young adults published in 2001.

The books are set in Albion – ostensibly England in a parallel universe – centuries after an African fleet invaded Europe. Today there are two races in Albion: the Crosses, darker-skinned with money, power, jobs and education; and the Noughts, lighter-skinned, poorer and usually working as labourers and servants. When Callum, a Nought, falls in love with Sephy, a high-status Cross, the ramifications include terror attacks, kidnapping and a tragic parting for the star-crossed lovers.

Jack Rowan, who plays Callum, grew up in a multicultural part of

London, boxing with kids of all backgrounds, and for him the premise of the six-part series was uncomfortable. ‘When we started, it was a shock,’ says Jack, who played Bonnie Gold in Peaky Blinders. ‘We did a week-long military training boot camp and I felt isolated when the instructor segregated the cast. When we’re on set the supporting artists are told, “Callum is a Nought, give him dirty looks.” It’s the closest I’ve come to understanding how that feels.’

Callum follows the rules, works hard and seems to be forging a path in life for himself. He used to play with Sephy as a child when his mother cleaned her family’s house, but when he got older he wasn’t allowed to any more. ‘Then he sees her at a party when he’s working as a waiter. Not only is she beautiful, but she also used to be his best friend,’ says Jack. ‘That’s when the tragedy begins.’

Masali Baduza is the young South African newcomer playing Sephy. ‘She’s from the so-called perfect family but has no idea what’s under the surface,’ Masali says. ‘Everything is heartbreaking for Sephy from the word go, but the show is uplifting overall. It’s saying, “If you can understand how I live and I can understand how you live, then maybe we can learn to get on.”’

The book, which last year was included in the BBC’S list of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World – along with Frankenstein and Pride And Prejudice – has always been filmable. Yet a number of movie projects failed to get off the ground. It was only when producer Preethi Mavahalli joined Mammoth, the probehind duction company Poldark, in 2011 that a TV series was mooted.

‘I’d read the book and it had an interesting premise, so when I came to Mammoth I told them I really wanted to do it,’ she says. ‘It took time to persuade Malorie to give us the rights, mainly because it had been optioned for film a few times before. But the changing TV landscape helped, with increasing budgets and more ambition in drama. Telling the story in six hours rather than two made sense to her.’

The author feels the story is increasingly relevant. ‘The book’s message – that whatever your colour you’ll abuse power if you have it, or try to seize it if you don’t, and that seeing beyond our differences to find love is the only way to break the cycle – has never been more important,’ says Malorie. ‘You see the statistics and there’s a rise in hate crimes and people being judged for their skin colour. The best dramas, like the best books, allow you to walk in someone else’s shoes and that helps us understand each other – so this is very timely.’

Having Malorie’s approval was crucial in many ways – from critical plot changes to surprising bonuses such as casting Stormzy. The books are the London rapper’s favourite novels and when he met Malorie at an awards show and she told him about the series, he wanted to be involved. ‘We thought he’d write some music,’ Preethi says. ‘But it escalated and he’s now playing a character who’s not in the books – Kolawale, the editor of a right-wing newspaper, which is a fun switch for him.’

Stormzy’s character is just one change the team hope diehard fans will accept. The book Noughts + Crosses was set largely in school, but the series has aged up the characters to their late teens and taken them out of education. The story now encompasses national politics and hugely ambitious themes. Cape Town was chosen for the location because it has hints of Europe with an African feel. But the basic premise remains the same and rests on the hotly debated theory that Africans did indeed reach Europe then, and even got as far as America.

‘We had to decide when and how the world changed, and what it may have looked like,’ explains Toby Whithouse, who has adapted the series from the book. ‘We found that big fleets were sent out from West Africa around 1200AD – some of them reached the US but most of the ships were lost. We say they landed in southern Europe and colonised the continent. It’s provocative and I can’t predict people’s reaction to it.’

Former Cold Feet star Helen Baxendale plays Callum’s mother Meggie and was initially worried about the changes. ‘The main reason I took this role was my kids’ reaction,’ says Helen. ‘They loved the books and said I had to do it. My kids are 13, 18 and 21 but they’ve all read them. I was worried they’d hate any changes, but they’ll be fine.’

She does worry, though, that the show will cause a furore. ‘With social media there seems to be controversy at everything,’ she says. ‘There’ll probably be people from left and right who’ll fume about this. I hope it makes people think; that’s all you can hope. It’s only a TV show after all.’