Sir Lenny Henry says Three Little Birds, his new ITV drama set in the 1950s, includes comedy to avoid it becoming a "grim-fest".
The post-Windrush story is based on his own mum making the journey to Britain to make a fresh start. It follows Jamaican sisters Leah (Rochelle Neil) and Chantrelle (Saffron Coomber) and their virtuous friend, Hosanna (Yazmin Belo), who board a ship bound for Britain in 1957.
As they soon discover, life in Britain isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nevertheless, they resolve to overcome the many challenges that come their way. And whilst integration presents many challenges and prejudices for the trio to face, Sir Lenny Henry has injected some laughs along the way.
The series grapples with the racist attitudes of the period, with Henry claiming he didn't want Three Little Birds to be a "Disneyfication" of what life was like for the new arrivals. That said, he also explained that he didn't want the show to be a "grim-fest", either.
Speaking at a press event, he explained: "When I look at my my mum and my uncles and aunties and their friends, I don't see this depressed, 'oh we came over here and it was really difficult you know and let me just drink some more and kill myself'. There is humour, there are jokes. My mum was funny, my uncle was funny. People were funny, they had jokes.
"I wanted it to feel like there was a snap to it. Because I remember them being funny and having a snap back and having lines. I don't remember people just being depressed all the time.
"We live as human beings in a world where we are poised between comedy and tragedy all the time. They say the best comedy is tragedy plus time. So, we've come to a time now where we can look back and find the funny and the tragic all in the same place."
Star Saffron Coomber went on to explain her view that approaching life with a sense of humor was "how people survive".
"That's how people survive. If you let the tragedy in and you let the darkness in and there's no way out, then you're going to be lost. There was no room to be lost. People had children to feed, people had a house to run", Coomber said.
Three Little Birds premieres on ITV1 at 8 pm on Sunday, October 22, and will be available to stream on ITVX and on BritBox in the US. If you're looking for more shows to enjoy, don't forget to check out our picks for the best ITV dramas that you should be streaming right now.
