ONE-WOMAN Show

As a WRITER and ACTOR, MICHAELA COEL has NEVER SHIED AWAY from CONFRONTING the raw, difficult parts of her ART-or LIFE. NOW, with two new FILMS and a highly anticipated RETURN to TV, she has NEW TRUTHS to MINE and TELL.

- CHARLIE BRINKHURST-CUFF

For some, the blank page is daunting; many artists dread the moment when they must put pen to paper, brush to canvas, chord to staff. Michaela Coel revels in the controlled chaos of creation. She lives for the intensity.

We're in her apartment in London at night. We bustled up here together—Coel hauling four or five bags, me carrying a recently delivered package, and her friend, the actress Ann Akinjirin, who we bumped into outside of the building, in tow. We go up in the elevator and into the apartment, where the 38-year-old writer, actor, and director lives alone. It's understated yet expansive, with a set of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out across the River Thames. At high tide, the water licks at the building.

The plan, she tells Akinjirin and me, with a twinkle in her eye as she drops the bags to the floor, is that she will put all the packages into trash bags, wrap them up in rolls of packing tape, and take them to the airport—just like that.

Jacket, vest, trousers, and brooch, GIORGIO ARMANI. Knot collar, RELLIK LONDON. Gloves, THOMASINE. Socks, FALKE. Shoes, CHURCH'S.

“Why don't you have suitcases?” asks Akinjirin, who worked with Coel on her acclaimed 2020 series, I May Destroy You. “You travel all the time!”

“I don't have suitcases 'cause they're all in Ghana,” she answers. That's where she's going tomorrow to start the four-month shoot for her long-anticipated return to television, First Day on Earth, which she has scripted and in which she will also star and serve as an executive producer. Limited information is available about it, and she doesn't divulge much, but it will feature a British novelist, played by Coel, who travels to Ghana to visit her estranged father.