Samuel Adewunmi, Bukky Bakray and writer Tom Edge discuss highlighting startling racial prejudice in the justice system – and showing that it isn’t fit for purpose
When he first read the script for You Don’t Know Me, Samuel Adewunmi assumed that the TV drama was set in the US. “It didn’t strike me as something that would air during primetime on the
BBC,” he says. “It had so many Black characters at the forefront.” Once he clarified that the show was set in
London (albeit filmed in Birmingham) it was “a must-have role. The whole story just felt truthful. I thought, this is a really interesting guy – his dignity, his identity, his morality – and the story was told from his perspective.”
The four-part series opens with Adewunmi’s character, identified only as Hero, in the dock. On trial for murder, the hitherto law-abiding car salesman looks out at the jury and – in a desperate plea for their sympathy and mercy – begins to tell his story. In relaying his version of events to the court, he hopes to overcome what facts and evidence, both circumstantial and forensic, have suggested – and to avoid a life sentence.