The newscaster trolled by the alt-right
P 10
Owing to the success of Save Me, Lennie James is riding higher than ever. He not only stars in the acclaimed TV drama, but conceived and wrote it too, says Ben Machell in The Times. It’s by no means his first foray into writing, however: aged 17, when he was living in a council-run children’s home in south London (his mother had died when he was ten), he wrote a play, submitted it to a National Youth Theatre contest and was named “most promising playwright”. Then in the 1990s, the BBC commissioned him to write a TV play inspired by his childhood. He delivered, but then they stalled: it seems they didn’t think a play about black people would attract a wide audience. “Basically, they weren’t sure whether or not I could tell a universal story through black faces. It was deemed a ‘special interest’ project,” James, 52, says. After a six-year battle, Storm Damage was made, but then there was another fight, about when it would be shown. The BBC suggested midnight on a weekday; then they proposed showing it specifically in schools. James dug his heels in. He got the prime-time slot he wanted, and it was a Baftanominated hit. But it didn’t feel like a victory, because it was a war he should never have had to fight. The result was that he didn’t write another screenplay for 17 years. It’s frustrating, he says. On the other hand, he hasn’t too many complaints: he has had a stellar acting career, both in Britain and in the US, where he lives with his wife and their three daughters, who have all gone to Ivy League universities. It’s an outcome he could not have imagined when he was a 13-year-old in care. “It wasn’t even a dream of mine. I didn’t have the ability to dream this, because I never knew it was even possible.”