Episode one is a meticulous study of power and how it manifests through culture, institutions and relationships. Even acts of kindness are poisoned by inequality Sephy is magnanimous when she orders a guard to allow parents of a child hospitalised by police brutality to sit by his bedside, but she’s only able to do this because she’s a member of the ruling race, making an act of well-meaning graciousness feel deeply uncomfortable. African statues rise up among skyscrapers, black faces adorn billboard adverts and white household staff wear dowdy versions of typically vivid African prints – all of which renders Noughts and their culture invisible and powerless. Landing almost 20 years after the book was first published, the BBC adaptation understands this nuance and exposes power in every shot.

It’s about racism – the system of power that allows a demonstrably false myth like race to govern reality. But Noughts + Crosses isn’t about race – the idea that skin colourdoes and should carry social consequences. All that stood out were the actors’ faces, as though the production intended to draw attention to race above all else. The set was modest and sparse, and the costumes humble, whether you were a member of the ruling class of black Crosses or one of the subordinate white Noughts. I first encountered Noughts + Crosses, Malorie Blackman’s novel about an interracial relationship in a black supremacist version of England named Albion, through a 2007 Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation.

Naughts and crosses malorie blackman