Timewasters

Boarders will follow five black teenagers from underprivileged backgrounds who receive scholarships to an elite boarding school, St Gilberts. Leaving their homes in inner-city London for the roller-coaster of boarding school, they go on personal journeys and find out how the other half live.

Two of the lead actors, Sekou Diaby and Aruna Jalloh, will be making their screen debuts alongside Josh Tedeku (A Town Called Malice), Jodie Campbell (Bulletproof), and Myles Kamwendo (The School for Good and Evil).

Entitled Boarders, the six-part series follows five disadvantaged black students from inner-city London who all win scholarships to an elite boarding school.

Like fish out of water, the move from the urban jungle to a school resembling Hogwarts is a shock to their zone 3 systems. But together they take on the highs and lows of their new lives as boarders, learning about themselves, their identities and how the other half live.

The BBC One series, made by the Red Production Company, bagged three awards at the ceremony, which was held at the Hilton Deansgate in Manchester. Years and Years was named Best Drama, while the acting gongs went to Rory Kinnear and Jessica Hynes.

Granada Reports also picked up three awards on the night. The ITV News programme won the Best Regional News Programme award for its investigation into the North West’s high suicide rate and the prize for Best Digital Content. Sports correspondent Chris Hall was named Best Regional News Journalist.

Following his speech, in a Q&A with diversity campaigner and advertising executive Karen Blackett, Lenny Henry described the pace of change in the hiring of women and disabled and ethnic-minority people behind the screen as “glacial”. His point was reinforced by the findings of Ofcom’s latest diversity report, discussed in earlier Cambridge sessions.

Over the past few years, UKTV channel Dave has notched up an impressive series of hits with home-grown comedies such as Taskmaster and Dave Gorman: Modern Life is Goodish.

Now it has high hopes for Sliced, a sitcom based on Samson Kayo’s crazy experiences as a South London pizza delivery driver, launched this month.

Timewasters has charmed critics and attracted healthy audiences with its mix of jazz, time travel and good jokes. Notably, it also has an all-black leading cast but, according to its creator, Daniel Lawrence Taylor, it is, “first and foremost”, a comedy.

Avoiding the usual tropes audiences have come to expect, the comedy series tackles issues surrounding race, gender and culture through the lens of a black time travelling jazz quartet.

Sitting down with three quarters of the Timewasters cast, it’s clear the chemistry flows off screen for Daniel Lawrence Taylor, Adelayo Adedayo and Kadiff Kirwan. Along with Samson Kayo, the group are back on screens as the time travelling jazz band from South London this week.

The comedy sitcom follows a London jazz quartet who reluctantly travel back in time to the 1920s, encountering a host of bizarre characters and situations.

Among the band is Nick (Daniel Lawrence Taylor), Jason (Kadiff Kirwan), Lauren (Adelayo Adedayo) and Horace (Samson Kayo).

The previous series ended with the group reuniting with the mysterious Homeless Pete (John Stoate) and the relentless Curtis (Kevin Garry) as they try to get back to the present.

This week's TV picks includes new time travel comedy Timewasters, the return of BBC drama Our Girl, a doc exploring the crucial hour in a murder investigation, and celebrity fugitives in Celebrity Hunted.