Dreaming Whilst Black TV review — whimsical comedy tackles film industry’s relationship with race

Receive free Television updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Television news every morning.

Dreaming Whilst Black, a new BBC comedy about a man who quits his corporate career to try to cut it as a film-maker, is itself the product of creator-cum-star Adjani Salmon’s decision to leave a steady job to pursue his passion. Originally starting out as a cult web series back in 2018, the show won a Bafta for its TV pilot last year before landing a six-episode order from the BBC and US indie giants A24: a considerable reward for the risk taken.

Salmon’s fictional counterpart, thirtysomething British-Jamaican Kwabena, is some way off from his big break. He is broke after leaving his unfulfilling career (and the excruciating company karaoke nights) behind in order to work on his film project full-time. The trouble is that there’s little demand for a personal, understated Windrush-era drama and a dearth of opportunities for someone with no experience, few connections and dark skin.

While much here will resonate with anyone who has felt caught between creative aspirations and corporate stability, the show is, more specifically, a satire of the film industry’s troubling relationship with race. Beyond the easy jokes at the expense of tone-deaf white colleagues, it pointedly skewers the superficial application of words such as “diversity” and “inclusivity”, and outlines how minority storytellers are compelled to lean into reductive stereotypes to get their work noticed.

For all the indignation and irony, the show is often more breezy than biting, and as whimsically quirky as it is wryly observed. Subplots involving a love interest and eccentric relatives sees Dreaming occasionally venture into sitcom/romcom territory but without feeling mannered or derivative. The humour is gladly more consistent than insistent, with running gags — such as the jolting cuts which reveal that what we just watched was merely Kwabena’s wishful reverie — judiciously deployed. As for Kwabena, he may yet become a feted auteur, but for now he makes for a natural, charming leading man.

★★★★☆

On BBC3 from July 24 at 10pm and available to stream in full on iPlayer on the same day