“What?” she reenacts for me, voice harsh with impatience. “It’s early.”
Don’t be fooled by the deadpan. Once she’s done with the act, she quickly returns to laughing, beaming, “it’s brilliant, such beautiful news.”
Gbemisola Ikumelo thanks the cast of Famalam and to BBC Studios for allowing space to make an audacious, loud and unapologetically black driven show as she accepts the Comedy Performance - Female award at the RTS Programme Awards 2021, in partnership with Audio Network.
When Famalam came to our screens in 2018, British television was ready and waiting for a high-profile comedic exploration of the contemporary black British experience. It tapped the same vein as Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum and the 1990s ensemble show The Real McCoy – and another hit sketch show was long overdue.
Originally broadcast between 1991 and 1996, the sketch show was one of the first to feature a primarily Black and Asian cast, exploring matters of relevance to their communities.
Shane Allen, controller of comedy commissioning at the BBC, added: “This seminal sketch show broke down barriers and gave diverse comedy a crucial mainstream platform in the early 90s.
“It laid the foundations for inclusiveness and representation that we’re continuing to build on today.”
The comedy sketch show Famalam has also been commissioned for a third series, with Danielle Vitalis (This Way Up) joining the cast alongside the likes of Samson Kayo (Sliced) and Vivienne Acheampong (Death in Paradise).
Over the past few years, UKTV channel Dave has notched up an impressive series of hits with home-grown comedies such as Taskmaster and Dave Gorman: Modern Life is Goodish.
Now it has high hopes for Sliced, a sitcom based on Samson Kayo’s crazy experiences as a South London pizza delivery driver, launched this month.
