‘There's hope for the future…'

New Cross fire survivor Wayne Haynes on a documentary series charting three events of 1981 that are pivotal in the history of modern Britain

- SEAN MARLAND

UPRISING

NEW TUESDAY-THURSDAY / BBC1 / 9PM / EPS 1-3 of 3 / DOCUMENTARY

Last November, Oscar-winning filmmaker Sir Steve McQueen gave us one of the 2020s most acclaimed dramas. BBC1’s award-winning Small Axe was a five-part anthology based on the real-life experiences of London’s West Indian community from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

Now, in his latest series for the channel, Sir Steve continues to explore those experiences – this time in documentary form.

Described as ‘vivid and visceral’, Uprising is a three-parter that revisits three connected events of 1981 and gives a voice to the key people at their heart.

It begins with the house fire that broke out in London’s New Cross during a party in the early hours of Sunday 18 January and killed 13 young black people.

Episode two moves on to Black People’s Day of Action in March of the same year, It was organised in response to the New Cross tragedy and saw more than 20,000 people join the first organised mass protest by black Britons. The series concludes with a reexamination of the riots that occurred in Brixton, south London, the following month.

‘It’s an honour to make these films with testimonials from the survivors, investigators, activists and representatives of the machinery of state,’ says Sir Steve, 51.

‘We can only learn if we look at things through the eyes of everyone concerned; the New Crossfire passed into history as a tragic footnote, but that event and its aftermath can now be seen as momentous events in our nation’s history.’