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• #I may destroy you kwame series

#I may destroy you kwame series

As well as a cameo in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, Essiedu has appeared on screen in series such as The Miniaturist, Kiri, Black Earth Rising, Press and Gangs of London. In 2018 the East Londoner was named on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. “I didn’t even know there were Black characters in Shakespeare, but this guy so much better than everyone else in this play”, Essiedu tells us. His perception of Shakespeare and his own potential future in theatre shifted when he was taken to see Chiwetel Ejiofor play Othello at London’s Donmar Warehouse over a decade ago. He didn’t always have a passion for Shakespeare though, as told The Queer Review in our exclusive interview: “I thought it was so boring and so elitist and so exclusionary”.

He also portrayed the title role in Romeo and Juliet at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory. That same year he became the first Black actor to play Hamlet for the RSC in a sold-out production at Stratford-upon-Avon that earned him rave reviews and went on to tour the UK before a run in Washington D.C. Early in his career he understudied Edmund in Sam Mendes’ production of King Lear starring Simon Russell Beale at the National Theatre, before being cast in that role by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2016. Courtesy of HBO.īefore taking on this ground-breaking queer character, Essiedu, who studied alongside Coel at London’s prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama, received acclaim taking on major stage roles. Weruche Opia, Michaela Coel and Paapa Essiedu in I May Destroy You.

Through Kwame, I May Destroy You offers an all too rare intricate screen portrayal of a contemporary queer Black man, while the themes which Coel explores in her writing have the potential to expand the mainstream conversation around sexual assault. Kwame’s narrative arc from the effervescent and sexually liberated gay man we meet in the early episodes to the shell of himself he becomes by the middle of the season is heartbreaking and sensitively portrayed by Essiedu with rich, layered character work.

In the episodes that follow, I May Destroy You juxtaposes Arabella’s handling of what she’s survived with how Kwame processes his own experience, his reluctance to discuss it and the dismissive treatment that he receives when reporting it to the police. As she confronts her trauma, Arabella is supported by her two best friends, aspiring actress Terry (Weruche Opia) and gay fitness instructor Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), whose life is also impacted by a sexual assault (in episode 4) at the hands of a man he met on Grindr. The series focuses on Arabella (Coel) as she struggles to finish the first draft of her new book and begins to piece together fragmented memories of being drugged and raped on a night out. Written and created by Chewing Gum’s Michaela Coel, she also co-directs and stars in the the twelve-episode present day London set dark comedy drama. Centring authentic Black voices and exploring frank and nuanced questions around sexual consent and exploitation it is compelling and essential viewing. I May Destroy You, a co-production between HBO and the BBC, is fast becoming one of the most talked about television series of the year on both sides of the Atlantic.