SEASON ONE

The Street Party

TX : 31st October 1978
Director : Alex Marshall
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Sheila Kelley and Kymm Goodwin.

Publicity : Colour Television - Empire Road is a Birmingham street, a racially mixed community … and a cracking good story, intended to entertain. Author Michael Abbensetts was born in Guyana; his characters are West Indian and Asian. The action, running the gamut, from the local Soul Food grocery to the local chip shop, covers the comic and romantic. Mike Phillips visited the street, met the author, talked to some of the actors: There's nothing unusual about Westbourne Road. It's a quiet little street in Handsworth, Birmingham; and during the day, when the children are at school, it's almost deserted, except for the occasional customer going into the tiny grocery shop on the corner.

But Westbourne Road is about to become one of the best-known streets in Britain, because it is the site of BBC-2's new series, Empire Road. Empire Road began when Guyanese playwright Michael Abbensetts went to Birmingham for the filming of his play, Black Christmas. "I went to stay with a friend in Handsworth, and it struck me that the atmosphere was very different from London. It was more relaxed. Everybody seemed to have more time, and it was easy to see what people's problems were. It was very mixed: Blacks, Whites and Asians living next door to each other. And you could hear all of them talking in the same Brummie accent. All that happens in London, but in Birmingham I could see it with greater clarity". The result was Empire Road, which is the story of a group of West Indians and Asians living in a suburban street in Birmingham. The series is centred upon the doings of West Indian landlord Everton Bennett, played by Guyanese actor Norman Beaton. Two relationships provide most of the action in the series - the relationship between Everton Bennett and his brother-in-law Walter, which is comic, and the relationship between Everton's son Marcus and his Asian girlfriend Ranjanaa, which is romantic.

Just as in the real-life Westbourne Road, the people in the street are drawn from all over the West Indies, Asia and Britain. The series went into production during the spring of this year. As it happened, the first of the filming to take place out on location was that of a street party with which the first episode ends. For the occasion Westbourne Road burst into a blaze of flags and bunting, and the filming of the episode took place in the atmosphere of a real street party. There was an all-girl steel band on a truck, there were food stalls and prizes, there was Norman Beaton telling stories, and, to top it all, there was the story of Empire Road being performed in front of the very people who had inspired it. The residents of Westbourne Road remember the event with some enjoyment. The Asian couple who run the corner shop described it as "a lot of fun. A real holiday for the children". But it wasn't all fun. A few doors up from the shop is the house which served as the television home of landlord Everton Bennett. On the day that I went to call, its Jamaican owner was leaning on the garden date surveying the street with much the same air of proprietorial assurance that Bennett displays in the series.

Like Bennett, he doesn't mince words. "Never again," he said with relish. "Since that BBC crowd came I've been exposed to so much jealousy in this street that I feel like moving out". As he spoke, I was conscious that we were being observed from behind the lace curtains on either side and across the street. For a moment it was uncannily like being in one of the episodes. Later on, when I described this incident to Norman beaton, he laughed out loud. "That's nothing," he said. "I was just knocking off work one night, and a man came up to me and right out of the blue he said: `You ought to be filming this kind of thing in another street you know. We're all respectable here'".

Comments of that kind were a reflection of one of the difficulties that the production team faced in casting Empire Road. One of the main storylines is the romance between the young Asian girl, played by Nalini Moonasar, and the landlord's son, played by Wayne Laryea. ("Pronounced Lie-yeah. They called me Larry-ah all through school, and I'd like it said right now"). This relationship was the source of a great deal of controversy, even before the start of the series. Asian leaders objected to incidents like the two lovers kissing on screen. According to producer Peter Ansorge, "The idea was to find a girl from one of the schools in the area, and we foundf a number of them, but when we described the plot, it always turned out that their families wouldn't let them do it". Eventually the part went to Nalini Moonasar, who doesn't come from the Indian subcontinent or East Africa, but, like Michael Abbensetts and Norman Beaton, from Guyana. That part was the most difficult to cast because, contrary to the conventional wisdom, it wasn't hard to find good black actors to fill the parts. On the other hand, the company as a whole came from an intriguing variety of backgrounds. Joe Marcell and Trevor Butler came from an orthodox drama-school and repertory background. But Vincent Taylor, playing the young tearaway Royston, was an O-level pupil at a local school, while Corinne Skinner-Carter was an actress-turned-schoolteacher, who had to take time off from her junior school in London's Hackney to play the part. Rosa Roberts (Miss May) was a club entertainer from Leeds.

The read off man out in the cast, however, was Wayne Laryea, who started his acting career in a children's serial made in Hollywood and went on to present a children's puppet programme on ITV. Apart from Mellan Mitchell, who plays the Asian father, Wayne was the only one of the regular cast who was not a West Indian. His mother is English, and he was born and brought up in London. He had to learn Birmingham and West Indian accents from scratch. Wayne described the relationship between the actors as "the bed I'd ever experienced. We felt this was something new, and something very important to us as black actors. We did unusual things, like staying on the set and watching each other's scenes. And it was all very friendly. Nobody trying to upstage the others. It was really nice.

But we all owe a debt of gratitude to Norman Beaton. He helped me personally with the accents and the mannerisms, and he was the anchor that held us all together". Beaton himself was modest about his role. "I came to Empire Road with a larger-than-life reputation, having just won the Variety Club's Actor of the Year Award, and that sort of thing is always difficult to justify. My character, Everton Bennett, was the pivot around which most of the scenes revolved, and it was an enormous responsibility in purely acting terms. I had to be there every day, and I had to produce my best every day. If that meant that the rest of the cast had to work at the same level of intensity, it's the only claim I have to be regarded in that light. All I was doing was my job".

To judge by the response of the audiences who've seen previews of Empire Road so far the entire team has done a successful job. One of the episodes was shown recently at the Edinburgh Television Festival and was greeted by television professionals as a breakthrough in the treatment of the ethnic minorities on television. Author Michael Abbensetts hopes, however, that it won't be seen merely as a black version of other television soap operas. "It is a soap opera, and I wrote it to appeal on a popular level, but I think it says something about the real lives of West Indian and Asian people living in British cities". There is no doubt about the popular appeal of the series. The BBC has already scheduled another ten episodes; Abbensetts is busy writing them. The one man who reacts warily and with caution to the claims being made for Empire Road is producer Peter Ansorge. "It's certainly the first drama series on television which will present West Indians and Asians as ordinary people rather than as problems or lovable clowns, but we made this as a drama series which is meant to entertain people like any other drama series, and we hope it will do just that". (Radio Times, August 18, 1979 - Article by Mike Phillips). .

Synopsis : Everton Bennett rules in Empire Road. But after six months away, with only Walter in charge, there are shocks in store for "the godfather".

Notes : Episodes were originally transmitted 6:50pm to 7:20pm on BBC 2.

Granma

TX : 7th November 1978
Director : Alex Marshall
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Lucita Lijertwood.

Synopsis : "Son … I saw a lot of pictures of naked ladies". Granma takes her first look at life in a big English city - and doesn't approve.

The Way To Walter's Heart

TX : 14th November 1978
Director : Alex Marshall
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Sheila Kelley, Ralph Lawton and Mandy Karina.

Synopsis : Miss May is on the lookout for a new husband - and Walter is number one on her shopping list.

Royston's Day

TX : 21st November 1978
Director : Alex Marshall
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Graham Weston, Sheila Kelley, Maggi-Ann Lowe and John Main.

Synopsis : "Dey hate I. I jus' sixteen years old and dey hate". Young Royston takes a black view of his future.

The Big Day

TX : 28th November 1978
Director : Alex Marshall
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Barbar Bhatti and Cassie McFarlane.

Synopsis : It's a day of surprises in Empire Road - but no one will tell Everton Bennett what is really cooking.

SEASON TWO

The Shark

TX : 23rd August 1979
Director : Peter Jeffries
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Thomas Baptiste and Jeillo Edwards.

Publicity : Black Comedy - Empire Road, Michael Abbensett's successful series of comic plays about life in a West Indian and Asian community, the first-ever of its kind, is back this week on BBBC-2. Here Naseem Khan meets members of the cast, who are unanimous in their enthusiasm for the series: Usually new comedy programmes slip on to the screen like plastic ducks into the bath, with a mild splash of jovial pre-publicity. No great claims are made for them except that a good time might be had by all. From the beginning Empire Road, the black Coronation Street as it was inevitably dubbed, had a heavier load to carry.

"Unlike so much of television drama today," its producer went on record as saying, "Empire Road is contemporary". "It may well be," declared Time Out, "the first drama series that black people can watch on television without feeling embarrassed or angry". "This is no black Coronation Street," said the Jamaican Weekly Gleaner, going straight for the bull. "Rather a down-to-earth appraisal of the struggles of West Indians and Asians in Britain". On the other hand, would-be reassuring srounds emerged from the pre-publicity. It might be black, but it wouldn't be "political" or "heavy". Its intention was to "amuse and entertain". Given the pioneering position of Empire Road - the first series conceived and written by a black writer for a black cast - the nervousness is only too understandable. It was reflected in the series itself; in a tentative approach by the series writer, Michael Abbensetts, by an overlarding with jolly "West Indian style" music, and above all by the fact that there were only five half-hour episodes that were shown on BBC-2 at the unsociable hour of 6:50pm in the Further Education slot.

Nevertheless, given all these disadvantages, it is to the BBC's credit that they immediately recognised the quality and potential of Empire Road. Nor did they wait for the ratings. Before episode one even appeared on the screen they had commissioned ten more. The new series has moved from its somewhat Cinderella time to the peak time of 8:00pm. Empire Road is no ordinary sitcom or soap-opera. The claims made for it have been massive. How, I wondered, did the actors involved in it now feel? Were they non-plussed? Did they feel that what they were doing had answered expectations? And had the experience of it affected them? For a start, all the four actors I spoke to were in no way surprised. They had known in their bones that Empire Road was special. "It is perhaps the best television series I have been in," said Norman Beaton decisively, a statement that with his experience carries weight. "And people enjoyed the second series perhaps more than anything else they'd ever worked on".

"The series itself was long overdue," declared Corinne Skinner-Carter, Beaton's long-suffering screen wife. "It's always been a white version of black people before. People who know how things are, watched it and said, `Ah! At last'. People who didn't know, said, `Oh! … It's like that?!'. I always thought it would show people a little bit how we feel, as opposed to how they think we feel". Soft-voiced Nalini Moonasar, who plays the apple of discord between the West Indian and Asian families, was suitably lyrical in her response. "The whole feel while making it was wonderful! You felt like something brand-new was happening. Everybody was really happy to be there. There was a feeling that it was all going to burst out into a … wonderful sunflower or something!". Young Wayne Laryea, who plays Beaton's son and Nalini's suitor, was more soberly positive. "It was a unique experience to be involved in a series of black plays by a black author". "It's a kind of window that you can look through on to black lives," said Horace Ove, the black film-maker who has directed three of the ten new episodes. "It's a real breakthrough".

Unanimous as all the actors are about Empire Road, it's clear that for all of them it has a different significance. That is only to be expected. The four of them range from their mid-twenties to mid-forties. Wayne was born here; the others came from Guyana and Trinidad. Their experience ranges from the school blackboard to show business to stage school. Norman Beaton, for instance, sees the series in the context of a long and considerable commitment to black theatre. Beaton - Everton Bennett, Empire Road's testy "Godfather" - is arguably Britain's premier black actor. While notching up achievements like the Variety Club's Actor of the Year Award, he still has a perceptive eye to the stepchild situation which black writers and performers have so long occupied. "For years and years," he said forcefully, "producers and directors have been saying that there are no black writers and no black actors or black directors. What Empire Road has done is to expose this as a total and utter red herring.


The combination of the BBC's expertise and the fact that one can assemble a company like Empire Road, and that one has a writer like Abbensetts and a director live Ove, glaringly suggests the ethnic minorities are grossly unrepresented in the media. And that, come 1981 and the revision of television franchises, there has to be a major rethink by people in control of the media and their finances to dress this balance". Corinne Skinner-Carter has had a similarly long experience, and knows many of the frustrations that Beaton does. From Trinidad, she worked as a dancer until, as she engagingly said, she thought, "Uh, uh - getting too old to kick up your legs," and took drama classes. She is in addition a qualified teacher, and teaches Caribbean dance in a local youth club on a voluntary basis. For her, Empire Road was important for redressing the white-orientated bias of television, but she is not uncritical of it. "I didn't like the first three episodes for a start. The trouble was that Abbensetts had only five episodes and he was trying to push everything in. And there was a lack in the first series - the nasty side of it, you could say. The pressures on the black community are shown more clearly in the new series, as opposed to the joviality".

"The new series has put Abbensetts into a position to get his teeth into his subject," Norman Beaton explained. "There was nothing wrong with the first series except that it was approached in a tentative manner. The new series has given Abbensetts the opportunity to expand on the characters, to flesh them out". "But writers don't like writing for women - even Michael," said Corinne regretfully. "I've always accused him of being a chauvinistic pig. The women in Empire Road are passive. I'm only there because Norman must have a wife - because if he wants a cup of coffee he can't make it for himself". Nalini Moonasar has no such dissatisfaction with her role. She plays Ranjanbaa, the young Indian girl with whome Everton's son falls in love, much to the fury of both parents. "I looked at the part and thought, `That part is written for me!'. I just felt her totally. I loved her! I played her with feeling". In fact, landing the part of Ranjanaa must have been close to Nalini's dream. She came to England as Miss Guyana (an image she would now rather forget), longing to be involved in "the world of English drama and Olivier and so on". She'd acted a lot in Guyana ever since her debut as Baby Jesus at the age of four; but she had no experience in Britain. "Suddenly I realised I was coloured and it was difficult I never thought of that in Guyana".

Wayne Laryea who plays Marcus (Nalini's suitor) has yet another view of the series. The son of a Ghanaian father and English mother, born in London, he has no Caribbean connection. "I drew on my own experiences growing up here for Marcus. There is a big cultural gap. It's difficult for second-generation children to maintain the balance between the two cultures. And that's another reason why Empire Road is important". All agree, however, that the second series is a strong development: but that even though it might have teeth, it still doesn't forget its smile. Another difference is in directors. This second series has three - Peter Jefferies, Michael Custance and Horace Ove, who is himself from the West Indies. It was the first time that any of them had been directed on television by a black director. "Oh my gosh!" said Corinne expressively. "He was a picture guy! He was so concerned with how his picture would look. He was more concerned with mood than words. I remember once `Marcus' asked him for a time to go with a movement Horace wanted, and Horace yelled, `I don't want lines … I want emotion!'".

Ove himself, best-known for his film Pressure, had not been keen on being involved in Empire Road. "Frankly, I did not like the first lot that went out very much. But I got interested when I read the new lot: they dealt with real life up to a certain extent". He is certain that, being a West Indian, he got better performances out of the cast. "You see, when West Indian actors go on television they react, and clean up their accents, and lose out on their rhythm and style. English directors will tend to suggest English motivations to them, and they create something else out of it". What Ove tried to do, he said, was to relate the script and emotions in it to life back home. It worked, particulary for Corinne and Norman. "I got something out of all the directors," said Corinne. "But Horace got me to relax in my body as opposed to the way the English make you work". "Clearly he was in touch with all the unwritten lines in Abbensett's world," said Norman judiciously. "It was a joy working with a West Indian director. But having said that, I am not knocking the other two directors, who made an equal contribution from their own perspective". Their younger colleagues agreed.

Even though Ove might have brought another dimension, they saw it as a variation. "Basically all the directors were very understanding: each presented a different mood," felt Nalini. "All the directors were excellent," Wayne said firmly, "but since Horace was from the Caribbean he added different shades". The contrast between the three styles of all the directors promises to be one of the most interesting aspects of the second series. Taken to its logical conclusion, the kind of chemistry that the four actors of Empire Road describe so warmly - brought about by the conjunction of black writer, actors and (on occasion) director - must lead to certain questions. Norman Beaton may complain, as he does, that "the Ayckbourns, Stoppards, Mercers of this country don't write parts for black actors; it's as if they're colour blind". But is it desirable that they should, when all four actors claimed they were able to give more to a black script?

And it is only recently that white Michael Hastings got dusted up for his West Indian comedy Gloo Joo. "I turned down Gloo Joo," Beaton said, "because of its lack of veracity in every area of importance. If a white man," he went on, "is going to write parts for black people, then he has to be absolutely true". "No," said Wayne Laryea, "It's all right. In the end you're just writing about people, aren't you? It can be just as valid, in a different way. But it's wrong if all there is is white people writing about black people". In a way he put his finger on it. Black writers have undoubted difficulty in presenting subjects from their own experience both on stage and television. White promoters find the product hard to understand in their own frame of reference, and are unconvinced of its general market value. "Anything to do with Asians or blacks is considered uncommercial unless we're leaping around like lunatics in Black Mikado or Kwa-Zulu," said Beaton scathingly. (Radio Times, August 18, 1979 - Article by Naseem Khan).

Synopsis : Round One of the "Battle Of The Giants!". In one corner Everton Bennett, the godfather of Empire Road - and in the other, Sebastian Moss, a rogue landlord prepared to hit below the belt.

Notes : Episodes were originally transmitted 8:00pm to 8:30pm on BBC 2. The signature tune for the series was provided and performed by Matumbi.

Mongrels

TX : 30th August 1979
Director : Peter Jeffries
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Julie Walters (Jean Watson), Jamila Massey and Tahir Mahmood.

Synopsis : "The people … the men … I go out with. They're usually white, in fact". Marcus becomes attracted to a beautiful, young half-caste teacher. After all, Ranjanaa is away, and Camille is only passing through.

M-Mister L-Landlord

TX : 6th September 1979
Director : Peter Jeffries
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Thomas Baptiste, Gordon Case and Janet Bartley.

Synopsis : Walter is the man of the moment - offering cigars all round in his role as property king. But when he meets his new tenants, Walter learns he is playing in a game he cannot win.

Football Crazy

TX : 13th September 1979
Director : Michael Custance
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Meg Johnson, Frances Cox, Allister Bain, Larrington Walker, Niall Padden, Alma Tang-Yuk, Kenneth Hadley and Athelston Williams.

Synopsis : "If I miss the match I'll kill myself, Regis. Cunningham. The big boyds". Desmond and Royston are determined to see their new black football heroes in action.

Kalaloo Sunday

TX : 20th September 1979
Director : Horace Ove
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Synopsis : She attends church in the morning, has kalaloo and yellow plantins with her lunch and watches television all afternoon - but Hortense is yearning for the Sundays she knew back home.

Blues In The Night

TX : 27th September 1979
Director : Horace Ove
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Frances Cox, Meg Johnson, Julie Walters (Miss Watson), Gregory Munroe, Anthony Armatrading and Charu Bala Chokshi.

Synopsis : "They're guests in our country. They must learn to behave as we do". Miss May's wild weekend "blues" parties are disrupted by angry protests from a white neighbour.

Blues In The Night

TX : 4th October 1979
Director : Michael Custance
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Frances Cox, Meg Johnson, Julie Walters (Miss Watson), Gregory Munroe, Anthony Armatrading and Charu Bala Chokshi.

Synopsis : "They're guests in our country. They must learn to behave as we do". Miss May's wild weekend "blues" parties are disrupted by angry protests from a white neighbour.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E

TX : 11th October 1979
Director : Peter Jeffries
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Thomas Baptistie.

Synopsis : "Okay. Okay. Do you watch programmes dat make jokes about wogs?"; "I turn 'em off immediately. I don't call all dat rubbish jokes!"; "But some people call dem jokes…".

Godfadder At Bay

TX : 18th October 1979
Director : Michael Custance
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : George Baker (Mr Butterworth), Thomas Baptiste, Allister Bain and Gregory Munroe.

Synopsis : "We find that some West Indians are a bad business risk … It's simply that some West Indians spoil it for others". Everton and the West Indian Businessman's Association face a financial crisis.

Streets Of Thornley

TX : 25th October 1979
Director : Horace Ove
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Thomas Baptiste, Allister Bain, Tahir Mahmood, Valerie Holliman, Steven Soden and Seva Dhalivar.

Synopsis : "Oh score. Can you imagine it? Asians and West Indians getting' together …". Marcus decides to keep an eye on Ranjanaa when her father's sweet shop is attacked by a racist gang of youths.

Wedding

TX : 1st November 1979
Director : Horace Ove
Script : Michael Abbensetts

Cast : Jamila Massey, Thomas Baptiste, Allister Bain, Meg Johnson, Frances Cox, Suzan Yusuf and Marcus Marker.

Synopsis : Today Ranjanaa, a beautiful young Indian girl, is marrying Marcus, a West Indian boy from across the street - and Empirte Road is to celebrate the wedding of the year!