‘Queenie’: Onyx Collective Boards Candice Carty-Williams & Channel 4 Drama; Cast Unveiled
Onyx Collective has boarded Candice Carty-Williams’ buzzy British drama series Queenie.
Disney Entertainment’s brand has joined Channel 4 in the UK on the show, which the British network ordered back in August 2021. Onyx Collective curates global stories from artists of color with a culturally specific point of view, which aligns with Carty-Williams’ story.
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Queenie will air in the UK and Ireland on Channel 4 and stream exclusively on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in all other territories. Steve November’s Further South Productions is attached to produce in association with Lionsgate TV, which has international sales rights, and cast has also been set. Shooting began in late April.
Writer Carty-Williams is emerging as one of the UK’s most sought after new scribes. Netflix last year boarded her BBC series Champion, which is billed as “a love letter to Black British music.”
Newcomer Dionne Brown has been cast in the title role as Queenie Jenkins, a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in south London, “straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither.” After a messy breakup, she seeks comfort in all the wrong places and realizes she has to face the past so she can rebuild.
Bellah will play Queenie’s childhood friend Kyazike, while Samuel Adewunmi will play Frank, Kyazike’s older cousin and Queenie’s intellectual match.
Brown is a 2021 Arts Educational School graduate. She is set to play a detective in Criminal Record alongside Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi for Apple TV+ and previously featured in The Walk-In for ITV. Her credits while training include In These Four Walls, Dance Nation, Romeo & Juliet and Love & Information.
Adewunmi was BAFTA-nominated for his lead role in BBC crime drama You Don’t Know Me and is et for a series regular role on Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion for Disney+ alongside Olivia Colman, Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn. He also appeared in The Last Tree, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Bellah is a MOBO-nominated singer-songwriter, whose single “Evil Eye” debuted on the Colors platform and has been seen 1 million times worldwide.
Brown is represented by Christina Shepherd and Luke Reilly at The Artists Partnership, Adewunmi by Kate Buckley at 42 and Brandt Joel and Elan Ruspoli at WME, and Bellah by Anna Tune at Independent and Sonitus Management.
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