‘It’s a compulsive thriller which asks some difficult questions’

Michaela Coel and Hugo Blick talk to Georgia Humphreys about legal drama Black Earth Rising

How much do you know about the prosecution of international war crimes?

If the answer is “very little”, you’re not alone – it’s a topic many of us are unfamiliar with.

Take actress Michaela Coel: before reading the script for Black Earth Rising, a new BBC2 thriller which deals with the complicated legal ramifications of the Rwandan genocide, she had no idea about the history the show covers.

“I felt outraged, shocked at my own ignorance,” says the 30-year-old, known for writing and starring in E4 sitcom Chewing Gum. “When did this happen? I was asking my Mum, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’”

Here, Coel, and the drama’s creator, Bafta-winner Hugo Blick, tell us more about the explosive six-parter. Shaping the story

Coel plays Kate Ashby, adopted from Rwanda as a child during the genocide, and raised in Britain by Eve Ashby (The Crown’s Harriet Walter), a prosecutor in international criminal law.

Now in her 20s, Kate has followed in her mother’s footsteps and works as a legal investigator in the law chambers of Michael Ennis (played by Roseanne star John Goodman).

“She’s absolutely incredible,” Coel says of her character. “I understand that she is not real but she is my hero. Her perseverance, her resilience, her strength, her ability to defy alone is admirable.”

The story takes a turn when Eve embarks on a case at the International Criminal Court, prosecuting an African militia leader, and Michael and Kate end up on a journey that will alter their lives forever.

“I found the more I read, the more tangled everything became,” Coel says. “It was almost like a rabbit hole that I felt I didn’t have the IQ to master.”

Welshman Blick, whose previous successes include political thriller The Honourable Woman,

0 Michaela Coel and John Goodman in Black Earth Rising

understandably did a lot of research.

“In order to feel authentic and knowledgeable about these things, it took about six months of research through Rwanda and into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a number of people whose experiences are, in some ways, shown to influence the story,” says the 53-yearold writer. “But they’re not personifications.”

Subject matter

After completing The Honourable Woman, about a baroness trying to forge new ties between Israelis and Palestinians, Blick recognised he was “interested in the reconciliation of trauma”.

“So I thought, ‘How does that work institutionally?’

“Looking at war crimes, that’s a pretty big traumatic event and how are we helping to reconcile people to that? And why are we doing it as a Western environment? Should we be doing it? Why are we doing it?”

Issues of justice, guilt and self-determination are touched on across the episodes.

“Our knowledge of modern Africa reminds you that during the genocide it was a period when OJ Simpson was arrested.

“What do we remember? We remember OJ Simpson’s arrest, the tragic death of two people, but in fact, at the same time, up to a million people were killed in Rwanda.

Potential reaction

Blick hopes that after seeing the drama, people have a better understanding of “our relationship between our institutions, justice and Africa”. But he also says it’s a “two-way street”.

“It doesn’t mean that we cannot be critical of African environments,” he says.

“This is a story that is built to be a compulsive thriller, and it’s asking some difficult questions.”

Personal connection

Coel’s parents were born in Ghana, where filming of Black Earth Rising took place.

“It was my first time going home and it was absolutely overwhelming,” she says.

Does she see similarities between her and her character?

“Definitely, when we went to Ghana, it’s [my character’s] first time going back to Rwanda, it was my first time going back to Ghana. Being brought up in the West, I was born here and her only memories begin here.”

As for whether she thinks more people will investigate Rwanda’s history thanks to the show, she says: “I believe in curiosity. I believe it is something that I was denied growing up, going to a pretty s*** school.

“Only now have I learnt curiosity. I would love for everybody to have the desire to be curious beyond comfort.”

● Black Earth Rising starts on BBC2 today, 9pm