BBC Radio 3 audio drama which re-imagines the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic 'The Great Gatsby'. Like the original, it is set in the 1920s but instead of being set in Long Island, New York, it is set in Harlem during one of the greatest creative cultural revolutions America has ever experienced, The Harlem Renaissance. All the characters are Black African Americans rather than White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).
The Harlem Renaissance gave African Americans across the country a new spirit of self determination, pride and a belief in their own American Dream, that all Americans would one day be able live and be respected and accepted as one, living in a time when segregation becomes a thing of the past.
Chiké Okonkwo stars as the domineering Tom Buchanan, an uptight black businessman married to Daisy (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Malachi Kirby plays Nick Carraway, Daisy's cousin, who moves to New York to escape the racially segregated Deep South. Nick and Daisy become caught up in the infamous parties of Jay Gatsby (played by Ncuti Gatwa), a mysterious black business magnate who often hosts extravagant all night jazz parties on every floor of his home.
The 2-part drama is set to a jazz score and is adapted by playwright Roy Williams, the London-born creator of the acclaimed stage-play trilogy Death of England.