Latest news with #WashingtonBlack
ABC News
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
What Washington Black, a series set in the early 19th century, can teach us about life today
Set in the early 19th century, Washington Black is the odyssey of 11-year-old George Washington "Wash" Black, who was born on a Barbados sugar plantation. Based on the Booker-shortlisted novel of the same name, the new television series traces the journey of Wash (Eddie Karanja) as his talent for drawing and exceptional scientific mind is ignited under the tutelage of eccentric scientist and abolitionist Titch (Tom Ellis). Forced to flee his old life after a shocking death, Wash moves to Nova Scotia, where he falls in love with Tanna (Iola Evans), a British woman secretly born to a Melanesian mother. But when a bounty hunter discovers his true identity, Wash's freedom and life are once again in jeopardy. Sterling K Brown (This is Us, Paradise, American Fiction) plays Medwin Harris, the larger-than-life de facto mayor of the Black township in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Wash finds himself. "I believe that Wash is an individual who does not allow his circumstances to dictate his possibilities through the power of his dreams, his imagination, his creativity," Brown told ABC News. "He is able to transcend his current circumstances in such a way that he is not bogged down by them. "He only just sees them as a temporary obstacle to what is ultimately inside of his heart." Brown said there was a lot the 19th-century odyssey could teach its audience about life today. "I don't want to pay lip service and sort of negate the struggles that people are going through today. I don't mean to make light of them," he said. "But I do want to emphasise just how empowered your own internal vision can be in terms of upliftment. "Don't allow the circumstance to make the dream small. Keep the dream big. "Keeping the dream big is an act of resistance. "You are actually saying to the world, 'however you see me, whatever you think that I am worthy of, I know myself to be worthy of more'. "And I think that is not just to Black people, to any sort of marginalised group of people, it is a powerful story that anybody who feels less than or feels made to be less than, knows there's an internal knowing that is louder and more resonant than what anybody else has to say about you." Ernest Kingsley Jr (The Sandman, War of the Worlds, The Sparticle Mystery) plays a 19-year-old Wash who has built a new life for himself in Nova Scotia, where he assumes the name Jack Crawford. Kingsley said the character maintained a youthful sense of wonder despite hardships because of the potency of his dreams, and as an actor, he worked to convey this. "It was making sure I understood in full capacity what those dreams were, the science and the curiosity of the world, and the wonder, and bringing that with me to older Wash," Kingsley told ABC News. "I think when facing the adversity … what gets you through it is that wonder in the world and the way you kind of see those dreams. "I think that gives you the feel[ing] to be, like, 'OK, this is hard, this is difficult, but I can overcome this because I have this dream where I see more for myself, and I carry myself with love and perseverance.'" At one point, it seems Wash may miss out on credit for a scientific innovation. Kingsley said being credited for your work brought essential visibility. "You see all the pain that Wash goes through to get to where he's got to, and so, to receive credit for that, you're also crediting the overcoming and the persevering in spite of all those difficulties and the hardship," he said. Brown, whose character is a mentor to Wash, said that while the series was a work of fiction, Black people have long been inventors and creators. "If history is sort of told by the people who are on top, and they get a chance to shape it into their own image, then they get to shape it in a way that makes it seem as if we made no contribution at all," Brown said. "We have a history of creativity. We have a history of innovation that oftentimes they don't want to teach us about. "They want to change the curriculum, change textbooks in such a way that make it seem like we made no contribution at all, whatsoever. Washington Black is available on Disney+.
Daily Mirror
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Miranda star looks completely different in new slavery drama on TV tonight
This Is Us star Sterling K Brown returns to our screens tonight in Washington Black - a Disney+ drama featuring a Miranda star who fans may struggle to recognise Miranda star Tom Ellis is acting opposite award-winner Sterling K Brown in new Disney+ drama Washington Black - however, fans will struggle to recognise him. The 46-year-old burst onto our screens in sitcom Miranda over 15 years ago and is now taking on the role of Christopher 'Titch' Wilde in this highly-anticipated Slavery Drama. From This is Us to Paradise, everything actor Sterling K Brown touches turns to gold – he's got the awards cabinet to prove it. He's hoping his magic will rub off on this new series, which he acts in and also produces. Adapted from the popular novel of the same name, this is a story set in the 19 th century, following an 11-year old boy called George Washington 'Wash' Black. He is enslaved on a sugar plantation in Barbados when we meet him, but this is not a bleak tale of suffering. Instead, Wash manages to run away, and his incredibly intelligent, scientific mind takes him on an amazing and unexpected adventure across the world. Thrown into a life he never thought was possible, he has to reimagine what his future might look life as a free man, meeting interesting people and beating impossible odds along the way. Washington Black is available to stream on Disney+ now. The best of the rest The Couple Next Door With so much tension brewing, this is set to be an explosive finale to a taut and thrilling series. The couple at the heart of it all, Charlotte and Jacob, seem to be at breaking point, and as they step into theatre to operate together, their personal strife spills into their work. With a patient's life in their hands, their marital woes could have fatal consequences. Jacob pulls Charlotte to one side and offers her a fresh start, but she needs to share what's bothering her first. Charlotte finally reveals her fears and hopes for an innocent explanation… Meanwhile, back on the cul-de-sac, Alan is worried about Mia. When Jacob tells him she's busy spending time with her fiancé, Alan immediately smells a rat, and when Mia doesn't answer the door he calls the police. But with nothing concrete to report to them, he realises it's going to be his responsibility to make sure Mia is safe – and he's prepared to go to extreme lengths to protect her. Just as well, because inside the house, Mia's controlling ex is determined to get his own way, dragging up her past. So Alan puts himself in danger. Back at the hospital, Gemma and Leo are against the clock as they try to investigate the real culprit behind the recent deaths there. Questioning colleagues, they're getting closer to the truth, but they don't have much time to follow their hunches. To top it all off, Hari and Leo are heading for a huge fall-out. Can't Sell, Must Sell, Channel 4, 8pm A four-bed house in trendy Margate would usually be snapped up quickly, but Gail's property has been on the market for seven months with no offers. When property experts and presenters Stuart and Scarlette Douglas arrive, it doesn't take them long to realise what's going on. Gail's home is rammed-full of nick nacks, from Victoriana ornaments to golden cherubs and 22 lifelike baby dolls, which are making it tough for prospective buyers to visualise themselves living in the space. Gail's daughter has tried to tell her it's time to declutter, but she can't see the problem. However, with arthritis and other health problems slowing her down, Gail is finding it difficult to manage day to day life in such a large property, and she would love to move into a bungalow. Can Stuart and Scarlette use their powers of persuasion to de-personalise the house, so she can find somewhere more suitable? Can't Sell, Must Sell airs tonight at 8pm on Channel 4. Emmerdale Robert and Kim are all set for a secret meeting to hand over Annie's Field, but Robert senses something isn't quite right. He backs out of the deal, leaving Kim exasperated. Robert does some digging. John is frustrated that Cain is still miserable, despite the news about Owen. Struggling with his emotions, Cain grills Liam. Liam insists he can't break patient confidentiality and the pair come to blows. Later, John feels guilty after a conversation with Liam, and messages the helpline again. Coronation Street Todd is livid when he realises Noah is harassing Theo. Todd and Billy turn up to the community centre to find Noah attempting conversion therapy on a member of the congregation. Todd lashes out. It's Audrey's birthday party, but Sam isn't in the mood to celebrate. Sally and Tim sit down with Brody to tell him his mum has pleaded guilty – and to broach the topic of a prison visit. Dev offends Lauren with an offhand remark about her dad.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Washington Black review – the romantic bits could have been stolen from a bad pop song
Esi Edugyan's 2018 novel Washington Black is an unorthodox, steampunk-infused account of the era when transatlantic slavery cast a dark shadow over much of the world. Its hero is George Washington Black – or Wash for short – a Black boy of 11, growing up on a Barbados plantation. He becomes the protege of a well-meaning white scientist, Titch (who happens to be the brother of Wash's merciless master, Erasmus). Together they work on crafting the 'Cloud Cutter', an experimental airship that offers them an escape from the plantation when Wash is accused of murder – but which crashes over the Atlantic during a storm. Spoiler alert: the pair make it out of that episode alive, with Wash fleeing to Virginia, and later Canada. A Guardian review described scenes from the novel as '[unfolding] with a Tarantino-esque savagery', and the book doesn't shy away from graphic depictions of violence and suicide, nor frequent use of the N-word. It is also described as having a 'fairytale atmosphere' – something the Disney-owned Hulu homed in on above all else. As a TV series, Washington Black feels less like a grownup drama and more like the sort of quasi-historical show that teachers play to their pupils as an end-of-term treat. Let's start with the positives, though. The stunning scenery of Nova Scotia (which also doubles as Virginia) is a constant – a rugged, romantic backdrop to the action. Everyone looks the part, too: Sterling K Brown (also an executive producer) is rarely out of regal purple corduroy as Halifax town leader Medwin Harris, while the English contingent – among them Tom Ellis's Titch and Rupert Graves's Mr Goff – are Regencyfied to the max. (If you are a fan of towering 19th-century headgear, this is definitely the show for you.) The cast are excellent, including but not limited to Brown – who can convey so much emotion with the mere quiver of an eyebrow – and Eddie Karanja and Ernest Kingsley Jr, who do just the right amount of emoting as the young and slightly-less-young Wash. It is very easy to watch, and the four episodes delivered to press (there are eight in total) slip down easily and endearingly. But, really, that lack of friction is a problem. From the mawkish string soundtrack to some of the most heavy-handed dialogue ever committed to screen and the most cliched of death scenes (one character dies while stuttering out their final words and clutching at a stab wound), Washington Black lacks bite. To be clear, I don't believe that all productions about slavery have to be laced with unending trauma and pain, and the emphasis on science is a nice departure from the harsh realities of the era. But in sanding down the corners of its source material, it ends up with an almost uncanny feel. It's not Ellis's fault, but the idea that anybody – never mind the most enlightened abolitionists of the age – would have answered the question 'Is this boy your slave?' with 'He's my friend!' is risible. In fact, watching Ellis as an antebellum-era answer to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Caractacus Potts is a jarring experience. Julian Rhind-Tutt is perfectly terrifying as Erasmus, but – with the book's darker moments removed – he is a sociopath without a cause. One character simply describes themself as 'an unhinged disgrace', as shorthand for the audience learning why they are unhinged or disgraceful. It didn't have to be 'Tarantino-esque' – but did it have to be quite so PG? Washington Black is also something of a romance, another area where it wobbles along. Kingsley Jr and Iola Evans – who plays a mixed-race, white-passing noblewoman named Tanna – give it their best shot. But lines such as 'We'll create a world of our own' and 'She breathes life into me' feel as if they have been lifted from a bad pop song. By the time we get to 'My everything is better with you', I have begun to feel queasy. Tanna is distraught that her white father has never allowed her to explore the other side of herself, and her maternal connection to Solomon Islands. Unfortunately, we must learn all this through trite dialogue that sounds less like the stuff of a Disney+ drama, and more like the things that Disney princesses – locked in their gilded cages – sing about in their films. Washington Black comes with plenty of potential and, as an exercise in world-building, it is rich and appealing. But, unlike the Cloud Cutter, this is a creation that never takes flight. The hats really are lovely, but they are just not enough. Washington Black is on Disney+ now.
Refinery29
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Refinery29
Sterling K. Brown & Ernest Kingsley Jr. Lead A Joyful Rebellion In Washington Black
Washington Black is about joy. That may come as a surprise, since the story (based on the novel by Esi Edugyan) starts on a Barbados plantation where we find the titular character enslaved and shackled by his surroundings. 'Joy' isn't often a word associated with Black period pieces from this era. But Washington Black, affectionately known as 'Wash' (played at different ages by the equally impressive Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Eddie Karanja), is a boy who dares to wonder, to dream, and to soar in spite of the captivity of his circumstances. His defiant curiosity leads him from Barbados to a journey of international escapades where he finds community, love, and freedom. 'It's a globe-trotting exhilarating adventure of a story that is based on the power of the imagination of a young Black boy who finds himself in the worst of circumstances but doesn't allow those circumstances to dictate his possibilities,' executive producer and star Sterling K. Brown said of the series during a day-long Washington Black -themed activation last month. At the Grove Hotel in London, the cast (including Brown, Kingsley Jr., Karanja, plus scene stealers Iola Evans and Edward Bluemel) gathered for an immersive event that conveyed the spirit of Washington Black. There were hot air balloon installations (if you know the story, you know the significance), a spice market, a hand-drawn portrait studio, and themed drinks that all tied back to the whimsy and wonder that pulse through the heart of the series. One of the things I loved about the event — and about the miniseries as a whole — is that it felt like we stepped back in time, transported to a magical world of hope and possibility, one that feels less bleak than our current timelines. But no matter how many 'Ignited Sky' margaritas and 'Ember Isle' old fashioneds Hulu generously offered the journalists and influencers who attended the London trip for Washington Black, the only thing that mattered was this: is the show any good? The good thing is that it is. Washington Black follows the story of Wash, a boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation. When a harrowing incident forces Wash to flee with his 'mentor' abolitionist Titch (Tom Ellis), he is thrust into decades-spanning adventure that challenges and reshapes his understanding of family and liberation. When our timelines are as depressing as they are, filled with news of history being erased, banned, and challenged, a story like this — which is fictional but rooted in real events — is more urgent and necessary than ever. ' Come to Washington Black for Sterling K. Brown, stay for the limitless, magical world he helped build and the captivating young stars he has given his blessing to. ' 'It's important to continue to tell our stories, no matter what year it is or what we're going through,' showrunner and executive producer Kimberly Ann Harrison tells me over Zoom. 'Our stories are important. And this entire series was a history lesson for me.' Harrison was joined by creator, showrunner, and executive producer, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, who echoed her sentiments. 'The show's about truth [and] authenticity,' he said. 'The show is about living in the skin of who you are versus who the world is trying to tell you you are. That's the writer's job, that's the artist's job, to do the best we can, to put our truth into the world, and the world takes it as it does.' It's not just Wash who is fighting to hold onto who he is while the world tries to dictate who he should be. His love interest, Tanna (played with searing emotional depth by Evans), a biracial woman who refuses to pass for white, is navigating her own journey of self discovery. And for Evans, it was personal: 'I was doing a lot of real-time processing,' Evans says with a laugh, sitting beside Bluemel (who plays McGee, the man Tanna is reluctantly supposed to marry). 'There are challenges and privileges that come with being racially ambiguous [or] light skinned. It kind of depends what race people think I am sometimes, and that can be advantageous,' she continues. 'Tanna has the privilege of pretending to be white and everything that goes with that, but also it's so important to have a sense of home and where you feel like you can be your authentic self and like a grounded sense of your own identity so it was nice that Tanna gets to discover more of that as the story goes on.' As the story goes on, Tanna and Wash fall for each other and running right alongside joy in their narrative is love. The romance plays out quite beautifully and even though the high stakes of a young man coming of age while on the run dominates the tale, the love story is just as important. 'They find relief and joy and hope of a better life [in each other],' Evans explains that when Tanna first meets Wash, he is the first to see her for who she is, and conversely, she gives her the space to be who she is, since 'she's been squashed into being this white person, a Victorian privileged woman, all confined by society.' The restrictions placed on Tanna are different than the ones Wash faces, but they are reinforced by the same system of white supremacy. And as Wash and Tanna fall in love, the grip of those expectations loosen and we see two joyous young people finally being their truest selves. 'In the majority of narratives we've seen about slavery in mainstream cinema, you see a lot of the Black suffering, a lot of it is from the white oppressor's gaze,' Evans says. '[You rarely see] a more fully rounded, human experience of the people who were enslaved at that time. That's one of the things I really like about the show. You see the different enslaved people's religious practices, you see love, and then obviously you get to see Wash and his excellence and his brilliance as it's realized throughout the story.' Washington Black teeters closely into the territory of placing Wash on a pedestal built by his excellence, explaining away his travels with the caveat of his intelligence, but it never tips over into the magical negro or talented tenth tropes. And one of the main reasons it doesn't is because of the richness of the story Hinds and Harrison have laid out (via Edugyan's brilliant novel), but also because of Medwin (played by Brown), a man who becomes like a father figure to Wash while he's in hiding as Jack Crawford. Medwin and Miss Angie (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) provide a safe haven for Wash and other Black folks of the Underground Railroad freedom route in Nova Scotia, and they also give him the thing he's been missing his whole life: a real sense of community and connectivity. ' "We have that shared experience of going through so much hardship and pain, but there are multiple stories throughout history that show the excellence we've achieved in spite of that." ernest kingsley jr. ' Watching the series, it's comforting to see not just Caribbean, African and American Black history on display throughout Washington Black, but the Canadian influence too. As a Canadian, the Black history of Halifax is something I've been fascinated by, and well versed in, for years. It's a reminder that even when the Diaspora Wars are popping off on social media, we need to remember how intertwined our histories are. So as I sit in a hotel room in London — across from Kingsley Jr., who is British and Brown, an American — I have to ask them about the interconnectedness of the Black diaspora and the ways in which the show displays that connectivity. 'Thank you for asking that,' Brown responds. 'It was one of the things that really drew me to the story. We spend so much time thinking, they're not like us, right?' Brown laughs at his own nod to Kendrick Lamar 's takedown of Canadian rapper, Drake. 'But we've got a little bit more in common than one would think. There's a shared history — we're all part of the transatlantic slave trade. There is a connective tissue to us that, I think, if we start to embrace that connection rather than seeing each other separate and distinct, there's power in coming together and recognizing the continuity and continuum that is Blackness and that is the motherland, instead of trying to make each other feel less than, or separate, or subjugated.' Kingsley Jr. agrees: 'We have that shared experience of going through so much hardship and pain, but there are multiple stories throughout history that show the excellence we've achieved in spite of that, and how we've overcome and persevered.' In the series, Medwin delivers a line that I loved and that can sum up the ethos of Washington Black: 'Only way Black folk 'gon climb this mountain is if we pull each other along.' This is said after an epic betrayal, and with the context the audience has of knowing Wash's coming-of-age was tethered to a man (Titch) he never knew if he could trust, with the line between enslaver and mentor getting blurrier and blurrier. Wash's real family is Kit, the woman who raised him, and Medwin and Miss Angie. It's under their protection and through their love that he is able to be free to imagine, to create, and to defy the odds that were never in his favor. Wash's rebellion is in his joy, and it was clear through spending time with the cast and team behind Washington Black, that the joyful rebellion was shared in the creation of this epic action adventure. Sterling K. Brown is an Emmy winner (securing his latest nomination just last week for Paradise) and an Oscar nominee. He could be doing a lot of things with his influence and star power. He chose to adapt a Black Canadian woman's novel about Black boy joy. He has chosen throughout this press run to platform Kingsley Jr. and make sure the world is aware of his excellence and talent. Sterling K. Brown has climbed his mountain and now he's pulling along the next generation, as well as ushering in exhilarating storytelling we rarely get to see on TV. Come to Washington Black for Brown, stay for the limitless, magical world he helped build and the captivating young stars he has given his blessing to. Their joy is just beginning.
CBC
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
The TV adaptation of Esi Edugyan's novel Washington Black will surprise fans of the books
Esi Edugyan says Disney Plus's take on her acclaimed historical novel Washington Black will surprise anyone familiar with the sprawling coming-of-age tale. There are significant changes to the hero and his relationships, wholly invented scenes and entirely new characters inserted by showrunners and executive producers Selwyn Seyfu Hinds and Kimberly Ann Harrison. Edugyan says she accepted early on that transforming her Giller Prize-winning saga into an eight-part streaming show would mean surrendering her hold on the story, noting she "very much took a back seat" in the process. "It's probably never a favourable thing to have the writer of the book kind of lurking in the background, looking over your shoulder, saying, 'Why have you done this and not that?'" Edugyan says in a recent video call from her home office in Victoria. "I just kind of understood that this was somebody else's art." Like the book, which was championed by Olympic swimmer Mark Tewksbury on Canada Reads 2022, the TV series recounts the fantastical life of a boy born into slavery on a Barbados sugar plantation in the 19th century. Actor Eddie Karanja plays the young hero and Ernest Kingsley Jr. portrays the older Washington Black. At age 11, Wash is taken under the wing of his master's younger abolitionist brother Titch, played by Tom Ellis, who uses the boy as ballast for an experimental flying machine but soon recognizes his aptitude for art and science. Amid this burgeoning friendship, Wash is disfigured in a trial run and then implicated in a crime, forcing him and Titch to flee the plantation. Edugyan's tale is a first-person account by an 18-year-old Wash who looks back on a lifelong search for freedom and meaning that sends him to extreme corners of the world. The Disney version is narrated by Sterling K. Brown's Medwin, a mere side character in the book who runs Wash's boarding house in Halifax. Onscreen, Medwin is a mentor to Wash and gets his own backstory and love interest, all part of what Hinds explains as "the journey of adaptation." As such, Halifax features more prominently in the Disney story, which filmed in and around the Atlantic capital, as well as in Mexico and Iceland to capture scenes set in Virginia, the Arctic, London and Morocco. Hinds says Nova Scotia was home for about six months, with shooting locations including Peggy's Cove, Lunenburg, Uniacke Estate Museum Park in Mount Uniacke and the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site in Cape Breton. He says Halifax in particular "really adopted us as a crew" as they learned the local history of Black settlements in Canada. "There was a young man who used to cut my hair in Halifax and one day we were talking — he told me his family had been there, I think, 400 years. Which for an American immigrant like myself, who's first-generation American, this was just completely mind-blowing," he says in joint a video call from Los Angeles with Harrison. "A big part of what we're doing is trying to bake ourselves in the nooks and crannies and the history of the place. And I did as best as I could to let that infuse the actual storytelling itself." Among the biggest changes is the removal of Wash's facial scars, notes Edugyan, who became the first Black woman to win the Giller in 2011 for Half-Blood Blues and only the third author to win twice when Washington Black claimed the title in 2018. In the Disney version, the scar is on Wash's chest, where it's hidden from view. "That is quite a departure from the novel," says Edugyan. "That was a very deliberate choice on my part to have that be part of how Washington confronts the world — that he's not only an enslaved person but that he also carries with him this disfigurement, which gives him this sort of double estrangement." Edugyan describes the series as "a kind of translation or interpretation of the novel" to satisfy a visual medium and the demands of episodic storytelling. Her jazz-infused Half-Blood Blues was also optioned for the screen, by Toronto's Clement Virgo, which Edugyan says is still in the works. Hinds says he regards the screen version of Washington Black as "the same house" but bigger, with an expanded world that adds a romantic rival for Wash and a deeper backstory for the white-passing love interest Tanna, born to a Black mother in the Solomon Islands. "Because the TV medium just gives you room to explore things that Esi kind of laid out that were really great opportunities — really delving into Tanna's background or really seeing what the Solomon Islands meant (to Tanna)," he says. "With any adaptation, or at least the ones that I've written, the first thing is to find the emotional DNA of the story, right? And once I realized that the story that Esi was telling about finding hope and finding agency and finding freedom, once you sort of lock into the emotional core of what the characters' journey is, everything else makes sense. Both in terms of what you keep in and what you leave out." "It's quite different from the novel," Edugyan adds. "Anybody who's familiar with the source work will be surprised. But I think it's its own piece of art and I'm looking forward to having people watch it and to hearing reactions."
