Yahoo News Idris Elba tells us how he took over BBC Three
From this Monday (March 27), Idris Elba will be taking over BBC Three, filling the channel with content he's created and curated – for a full week.
The collaboration will cover comedy, drama, music and documentary, as Elba works with some of the best new and emerging talent in several genres, tackling issues that are relevant to young audiences today.
We sat down with Idris to find out how the takeover originated, and what his ambitions are during his new role as a telly commissioner.
Who approached who about the takeover?
The BBC Controller [Charlotte Moore] wondered if I would like to come onto BBC Three and do something for them. I walked into the meeting thinking, 'This sounds amazing' and I walked out with a contract to curate a whole week. That's the gift of the gab right there.
I've worked with the BBC for a long time on their various platforms, including radio and TV, and this was an interesting opportunity to reach a really specific demographic, an audience that takes and digests content in a different way.
I think the BBC Three audience tend to be open for anything – "Go on then, tell us what you've got" – and BBC Three can be like a chuckle box.
When they asked if I wanted to do it, I was really intrigued and went for it.
What can you tell us about the season itself, what does it reflect about your thoughts and opinions?
When I made a speech about diversity in Parliament, there were elements in that speech that stuck out as spines of ideologies, things that people could latch on to.
It was a speech about what we can do to improve diversity in television and film. So, we used that speech, and some of those ideas on diversity, as a throughline for the show.
How would you sum up that throughline?
Let's inspire – dare to dream. Let's take some people's stories and use them as a way to inspire people. Let's not say 'inspire', let's not be on the nose, let's do it differently. Let's take some genres, find some interesting participants.
Like Romesh [Ranganathan], who's an amazing comedian with a really, really lovely sense of humour, we've put him with six comedians who talk about what it is to die on stage, and how it makes you stronger.
That's inspirational to people like you and I; we're not comedians, but when you realise that someone like Jack Dee has fallen over, it's interesting. Or Marcus, the wheelchair boxer – you watch his story, and it's like, 'Wowzers!'
We want people to watch these films and think, 'Hmm, I might try something new.'
What can you tell us about Five by Five – a series of short films which you star in and produce?
It's one of the jewels for me. Because I come from a drama background, and here I am producing this drama show, my team and I were really excited by it.
Basically, we decided to take five writers and put them in a room together to mesh a story. Then we said, 'Oh, and by the way, the story has to be connected.' And then, 'Oh, and by the way, we want it to be diverse and make people laugh, cry and go, 'Woah, what's going on?''
We put these weird perimeters in place to create this great writers' room, who then ran with that and, with our director Kate Herron, created this beautiful five-part miniseries. They found another inspiring truth, via these stories. I'm super proud of it.
Do you think there are enough opportunities for young talent to break into the industry?
Opportunity doesn't exist for a lot of different people, for a lot of different reasons. Someone who has a doorway to opportunity should definitely put that beacon out there. Most of the people here haven't been platformed before, or haven't showcased their work – whether it's documentarians or actors. There's a lot of young people involved. Opportunity comes to you, it's about what you do when opportunity knocks on your door.
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