Alex Wheatle: Last News

BBC has said it will not proceed with projects involving Noel Clarke, the actor, director and screenwriter who in April was accused of sexual assault and bullying.Clarke, who has denied all claims except for one, accepting that he once made inappropriate comments about one woman for which he later apologised, saw his drama Bulletproof cancelled by Sky in May following the allegations.Now, the BBC, which was working an adaptation of Alex Wheatle’s YA novel Crongton Knights with Clarke’s production company Unstoppable Film & Television, has halted production.A BBC spokesperson told Deadline yesterday (July 2): “We are not progressing any projects with Noel Clarke at this time.”A Guardian investigation published in April reported testimony

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC is returning to its adaptation of Alex Wheatle’s book Crongton Knights after shelving the series amid sexual misconduct allegations against actor and producer Noel Clarke.

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC has halted work on an adaptation of Alex Wheatle’s book Crongton Knights after producer Noel Clarke was accused of sexual misconduct.

Early in Steve McQueen's Alex Wheatle, the young protagonist whose name gives the film its title prompts derision from a barber shop full of Londoners of West Indian descent by revealing that he doesn't consider himself African. "I might be Black, but I'm from Surrey," says the young Brit abandoned by his Jamaican parents, who has grown up in the loveless Social Services foster-care system.

One of 2020’s few joys has been Steve McQueen’s Amazon anthology “Small Axe,” a series telling, in some instances for the first time, the stories of the Black Brits who faced oppression during the ’60s and ’70s. While “Mangrove” touted empowerment through self-representation, “Lovers Rock” through music, and “Red, White and Blue” through reform from within, “Alex Wheatle” calls for literature as a gateway to freedom.

This late fall has been a treat because we’ve received a new Steve McQueen (“12 Years A Slave,” “Widows“) week every week for the last three weeks; when does that happen? And they are all part of McQueen’s new five-film anthology series, “Small Axe,” based on the Jamaican proverb, “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe.” Three films have debuted at the New York Film Festival earlier this fall, and those three have now aired on Amazon Prime Video.

With the arrival of Alex Wheatle, the fourth of five installments that make up Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s adamant and penetrating series of roughly hourlong dramas centering on the Black immigrant community experience in post-World War II Britain, the emerging core concern is the hypocrisy involved in the nation laying out the welcome mat to newcomers in the first place while denying opportunity once they’ve arrived. The theme could hardly be clearer than it is in this episode, which sees the eponymous young lad bounced around for years by social services before becoming involved in the Brixton Uprising of April 1981. The reason we’re seeing a film about him now is that, some years later, Wheatle emerged as a successful writer.

Small Axe anthology on the BBC have been revealed.Mangrove, the first of five original films, will premiere on BBC One and iPlayer on November 15. Lovers Rock follows on November 22, Education on November 29, Alex Wheatle on December 6, and Red, White and Blue on December 13.The films are set between the ’60s and mid-’80s, with each story centred on the experiences of London’s West Indian community “whose lives have been shaped by their own force of will, despite rampant racism and discrimination”.Never in my wildest dreams would I’ve thought my life story would get to the attention of film director Steve McQueen, starred by John Boyega & part of the @bbctvcentre Small Axe series.

The buzz around Steve McQueen's five-part BBC/Amazon anthology film series Small Axe is crescendoing ahead of the world premiere of three episodes at the New York Film Festival later this month, and The Hollywood Reporter now has an exclusive first-look photo from the film entitled Alex Wheatle. The series explores five stories from within London’s West Indian community between the 1960s and 1980s, with this film telling the true story of Wheatle, an award-winning writer for young people, and his own remarkable and often humorous journey through the care system, and then to prison following the Brixton Uprising in 1981.

Mangrove is set to open the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) later this year.The film, which stars Black Panther‘s Letitia Wright, will tell the story of the Mangrove Nine – a group of Black activists who clashed with London police in 1970 during a protest march, which led to a highly publicised trial.Mangrove forms part of McQueen’s Small Axe anthology series, and will premiere at New York Film Festival before having its European premiere at LFF, later airing on BBC One and Amazon Prime Video this autumn.The series of films will tell individual stories on London’s West Indian community between the 1960s and 1980s, with the other four being Lovers Rock, Education, Alex Wheatle and Red, White and Blue.Speaking of opening the LFF, the director

The 2020 edition of the New York Film Festival will open with the world premiere of Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock, it was announced today. Lovers Rock is part of McQueen's Small Axe anthology of five original films, which will premiere on BBC One later this year and on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

Moments ago, the New York Film Festival announced their Opening Night Selection, and it’s not a title you’d expect. Going in a different direction than at least I anticipated, they’ve tapped Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock as the Opener.

Steve McQueen is providing an update on his Small Axe series.