Interview with Black Ops co-writer Akemnji Ndifornyen

On Friday, BBC One launches Black Ops, a new comedy-thriller about two Police Community Support Officers – played by   Gbemisola Ikumelo  and Hammed Animashaun – who find themselves over their heads in the murky world of deep cover infiltration. Here Akemnji Ndifornyen, who co-wrote the show with Ikumelo and plays gang leader Tevin talks about getting it off the ground, getting the balance right, and whether there could ne a second series…

How did Black Ops come about?

We made a BBC Three show about five years ago called Famalam, which I co-created and produced – and that was the second time I worked with Gbemi.

I'd worked with her on [Dane Baptiste’s show] Sunny D, where I played her cousin in an episode, and I  earmarked Gbemi and said, ‘I've got to work with her on something.’ So, when Famalam came about, she was the first person that I thought of and I sort of built the show around her.

The first week of the Famalam shoot, which was January 2018, I had been doing some bits with Gbemi and watching her on the monitors and I said to the execs: ‘We need a show for Gbemi. She's brilliant, we have to get a show for her.’ And they were all like, ‘Yeah, it’s a brilliant idea. Put her in a room and throw some things around and see what happens.’ And then she pitched this idea about two community support officers who go undercover, and off we went.

Was it a fast process?

It did take a while to get up and running, just because of availability, everyone was so busy. We were doing further series of Famalam, I was acting in America - I was doing Shrill for Hulu and I was also filming The Queen's Gambit in Berlin for Netflix, and Gbemi was super busy with other things.

Then just before the pandemic, we had time to sit down and  put it together. Initially it was just a pilot, but I think the BBC had big ambitions for it because they felt like this will have legs.

Did you and Gbemi write the whole series together?

Gbemi and I wrote a couple of episodes together, Racheal Ofori wrote episode four, and then Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf wrote the other episodes – but Gbemi and I were across everything as creators.

We actually wrote episode two before any of the other episodes had been commissioned. We were in lockdown during Covid and I said, ‘Let's just write episode two just for the hell of it.’ And we did, we knocked that out really quickly, and most of the elements that we'd come up with remain in the final version of it, so it was really fun doing that.

Episode one gets off to a really strong start…

First episodes are so important, mainly because that’s the one that’s going to be reviewed and the one that is entered for awards and stuff! So, you want to make it bang.

I think episode one hits it out of the park. With that, I wanted the audience to be like, ‘Well, where can we go from here?’ I wanted to have a feeling at the end of ‘Oh shit!’

It also features some great cameos.

Episode one is a comedy and drama who's who. We have Joanna Scanlon, Rufus Jones, Kerry Howard, Holli Dempsey  and we have KG The Comedian. It’s a really subtle constellation of stars that we've thrown into our show. And these are just people who I called up and said, ‘Look, are you up for doing a day?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, cool.’

What can you tell us about your character, Tevin?

Tevin is one of the leaders of the infamous Brightmarsh Gang, which Dom and Kay initially have been sent to infiltrate. Not to spoil anything but the gang, far from being just regular run-of-the-mill drug pushers, is quite a sophisticated operation.

As time goes on, we learn that their drug dealing is sanctioned by a higher power. So, they're dealing with some degree of impunity on the estate, which makes them that much more sinister – because it's not just guys operating on their own fiefdom, they've been sanctioned by higher ups.

Is Tevin suspicious about Dom and Kay?

He is, Tevin’s not a slouch. He doesn't trust Dom and Kay so he keeps them on a very short leash. He's always coming up and questioning their whereabouts, why they were short with their supply and other things. He's very suspicious of those two.

Just when you relax and enjoy the comedy of their situation, he pops up as a menacing reminder of the danger they’re in.

Exactly, and I think that's the brilliance of the show, that balance. At its core you've got Dom and Kay as real amazing comic engines, and then you have this kind of layered story where Tevin and Breeze [another gang leader] pop up as reminders that there is an overarching threat.

The fact that you show up at someone's house in the middle of the night with a body to dispose of – that was nothing, that's just par for the course. 

Where was the show filmed?

Some elements were in North London, but a lot of it was done in Bethnal Green and the estate itself was in Thamesmead. East London and Hackney is a strong feature. It’s quite nice because I'm from Hackney, so having Homerton mentioned, Walthamstow Marshes, and things that we grew up in proximity to us, is really, really cool.

What was it like filming on the estate?

The estate that we use for Brightmarsh was pretty cool and 100 per cent welcoming. From a producer perspective, you want to make sure that you go into these places and you're not just taking from the resource. Our base was a community centre, so you want to make sure that you're ingratiating yourself with people and you're not being obstructive, especially post-Covid, because we're just getting back to filming normally and without loads of restrictions.

This is a comedy, but it delivers a deeper message too?

Absolutely. Dom and Kay are community support, and community support was designed as auxiliary of the Met to reach out to local neighbourhoods, and for people to see a familiar face, people that look like them, patrolling the beat, which is really necessary.

Dom and Kay being young black faces from the area and going beyond just community support, and actually getting into some really high-level undercover work – you need that, because you need that kind of representation within the police.

Whatever our reservations with policing all over the world, you do need people policing the communities that they live in, and I think Dom and Kay represent that.

What do you hope people will take from the show?

I hope they take away that at its core this is a fun, thrilling ride. You’ve got the fun of Dom and Kay’s relationship and their fish-out-of-water high jinks, and then you have the thrill element of you don't know what's going to happen next. And while you can come into each episode expecting to see Dom and Kay, you're going to be taken on an adventure because there are quite a few twists and turns.

Is there scope for a second series?

100 per cent! I think the joy of this show is that once you crack the nut of episode one, and you kind of build a rapport with the audience – which Dom and Kay have, and Tevin as well as an overhanging threat by the end of episode six – you kind of can take this wherever.

Some of the writers suggested the end of Back To The Future as a reference, for that idea of setting up the next adventure, and I think it holds true. You could plop Dom and Kay anywhere and they'd find high jinks to get involved in, and furthermore, they need one another. They are stronger together than in isolation.

• Black Ops starts on BBC One at 9.30pm on Friday

Published: 1 May 2023