With Sunday 9th August marking 50 years since the Mangrove march in Notting Hill, BBC One has released a trailer for their Small Axe film dramatizing the event.
From the Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Mangrove follows the events which led to the arrest of nine innocent Black women and men for protesting against police brutality in Notting Hill in 1970, and the highly publicised trial which followed.
The group, who later became known as the Mangrove 9, were arrested and charged with incitement to riot: Frank Crichlow, Darcus Howe, Altheia Jones-leCointe, Barbara Beese, Rupert Boyce, Rhodan Gordon, Anthony Innis, Rothewell Kentish and Godfrey Millet.
The trial saw the first judicial acknowledgement of the Metropolitan Police’s racist behaviour.
The cast is led by Letitia Wright (Black Panther), Shaun Parkes (Lost In Space) and Malachi Kirby (Curfew).
Mangrove will also star Rochenda Sandall (Line of Duty), Jack Lowden (The Long Song) and Sam Spruell (Snow White and the Huntsman).
Steve McQueen commented: “Sunday, August 9th, is 50 years since the Mangrove March, which led to nine innocent Black women and men being arrested. It was a march necessitated by relentless police brutality in Notting Hill.
“To commemorate the bravery of these community activists and the nine who went on to be acquitted of incitement to riot with the judge citing 'evidence of racial hatred', I am sharing the trailer of Mangrove, one of five films to be released under the banner Small Axe”.
Co-written by McQueen and Alistair Siddons, Mangrove is one of five films comprising the Small Axe drama anthology. The films will each tell a different story involving London’s West Indian community between the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, and their fight against the racism and discrimination they faced.
Small Axe will premiere on BBC One and iPlayer this autumn.
