02nd November 2020

BAFTA showcase success

We’re absolutely delighted to tell you that Chris Maudsley, the talented local filmmaker for our WW1 project, is one of three winning writers to have a script performed at a BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Competition showcase tomorrow. It's exciting to see the list of celebrated actors taking part.

Chris has been working on Black Cabs for three years, a pilot sitcom script about 18th century sedan chair workers in York. 

It draws upon his research into black lives and the abolition movement in York in the 18th and 19th centuries, featuring the boxer Bill Richmond, Whig MP Henry Galgacus Redhead Yorke and celebrated actor Ira Aldridge, together with those at the forefront of the abolition movement and their opponents, all set on the winding mean streets and snickleways of 18th century York.

In this episode Dr. Harrison is picked up by the Black Cab boys, Nathaniel and Theodore, who compete with rivals and racial prejudice to create a sedan chair start-up, inadvertently becoming central to the local abolition movement. The action follows an eventful journey from the Red House to a cock fight in Three Cranes Lane, dodging their rivals, watchmen, street protests, chuggers and racial prejudice along the way.

Chris made three films for us during our WW1 project in 2016/7, they can be seen on our YouTube Channel

To register for the free Bafta showcase event event https://events.bafta.org/event/view.php?id=288:d038-fb9b

More about Chris's background research for the script https://blacklivesofyork.wordpress.com