SITTING WITH the creator of the BBC Three and iPlayer series, Dreaming Whilst Black, Adjani Salmon, is a very different experience to the one I undertook two years ago when the pilot first dropped.

He’s calmer, content, and fulfilled. He explains why later.

One obvious reason is because his baby, his passion project from way back when, has finally reached the levels it’s always deserved.

Loosely inspired by real life events, Dreaming Whilst Black tells the story of Kwabena, an aspiring filmmaker stuck in a dead-end recruitment job who takes the first step to achieving his dream. However, he is quickly confronted with the tribulations of balancing finances, love, and his own sense of reality.

Salmon says the series confronts issues of significant importance pertaining to the use and abuse of art and artists, issues that left him with his own personal dilemma to tackle in his role as director. However, the Jamaican born writer, director and actor, says the medicine is delivered with ‘honey’.

“So Dreaming Whilst Black is a comedy drama about a young Black British filmmaker who is trying to make it in the film industry but comes up against the harsh reality of what it means to try and succeed in this country,” Salmon explains.

“I grew up watching American comedies and even in my adulthood going into film school I watched American comedies, I just wasn’t used to seeing comedy like that here.

“I didn’t see our authentic selves here. It was almost like, to be funny, you had to be characterized.

“So I kinda just wanted to make something that I watched, really, which was reflective of what I saw across the pond but equally I feel like medicine is best served with honey, so certain topics that we touch on, I feel like, delivering it in the way that we did, is probably the easiest way to digest it.”

Most creatives approach their work in a way that enables them to produce the best possible outcome. For Salmon, that should have been the actual show itself, but explaining how his focus was lazered in on all aspects, both on and off screen, he said: “The overarching message of Dreaming Whilst Black is to keep trying.

“But I think the question that we pose for the season was something that we really worked hard about, which was the exploitation of art. And the question of, can we exploit each other for artistic purposes?”

He added: “That was something which I’d wrestle with myself and think about, even during the crux of the show called Dreaming Whilst Black. The fact is, if racism didn’t exist, Dreaming Whilst Black wouldn’t exist.

“So, it’s that thing of what do we do to compensate for the fact that we talk about these issues? I guess how we do that, how ‘we’ personally compensate, is by being the solution to the problem that we’re portraying.

“So that is where (we have) a Black producer, Black execs, Black Directors, Black HOD’S in most departments, Black trainees, Black assistants and most of these people, it was their first TV credit in a Head Of Department role.

“So we were just making sure that we give. If the show is critiquing the industry for not giving opportunities, we made sure we gave as many opportunities as possible.

“It was two first-time directors, it was a first time DOP, a first time costume designer, there were loads. That was our way of being a solution to the problem which we are presenting.”

The pilot, adapted from the hugely popular web series co-written by Salmon and Ali Hughes, garnered a deluge of critical acclaim and a string of award wins and nominations for the creator, star and co-writer Salmon, including winning the 2022 BAFTA Craft Award for Emerging Talent: Fiction, The Royal Television Society’s 2022 Breakthrough Award, Screen International Star of Tomorrow and the Soho House 59% Gen Now Award.

“I’ve grown massively and I guess I’m more content and confident in myself,” he admits.

“To be honest, we’ve been, thankfully, given the opportunity to be ourselves. The pilot came out in 2021 and it was still that very brash, hunger of really wanting to get this thing out there, I really want you guys to see it, watch my show, watch my show.

“After that BAFTA, as much as we don’t do these things for those awards, but professionally, that award cemented my place in the industry.

“It was a great thing to have the ease of knowledge that, alright, cool, people respect my ting or people value my ting. Or, I guess, people that pay me, value my ting.

“Coming into the TV show all of my energy was extended into making the best product possible. And that, actually we believe that if we make a good enough product, the people will come to it.

“So now, I am calm. We’ve made the product, people are loving the product, people are watching the product. So this is me just being satisfied with a job well done.”

Full interview below: