EXCLUSIVE: Sir Lenny Henry’s Banijay-backed indie Douglas Road Productions is to spotlight Caribbean culture in the UK in an upcoming BBC2 arts documentary.
Deadline hears production will commence next month in London on the show, which does not yet have a title.
Commissioned out of Factual/Arts Director Patrick Holland’s department, the series will explore Caribbean culture in the UK, a personal journey for the celebrated UK comedian whose parents emigrated from Jamaica to Britain in the 1950s. Henry was the first of his seven siblings to be born in the UK.
Henry presented 2018’s Lenny Henry: The Commonwealth Kid for BBC1, which saw him travel to the Caribbean to investigate his heritage and was also produced by Douglas Road.
He is in the midst of collaborating with Russell T Davies on Douglas Road and Banijay stablemate Tiger Aspect’s Three Little Birds for ITV, which is inspired by his mother’s move to the UK and will narrate a story of two sisters and their Bible loving acquaintance Hosanna.
Douglas Road was founded in 2014 and counts Henry as CEO and Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle producer Angela Ferreira as MD.
Earlier this month, Ferreira organised an open letter signed by a host of Black and Asian UK creatives including Henry to BBC chair Richard Sharp over the alleged vetoing of diversity campaigner Marcus Ryder to a senior BBC News role.