An adaptation of Charmaine Wilkerson\u2019s best-selling novel<\/a> of the same name, the new eight-episode series has been adapted for the screen by Marissa Jo Cerar (The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a>, 13 Reasons Why<\/a>), who serves as showrunner and executive producer in a team that also includes Oprah Winfrey.<\/p>\n The decades-spanning show unfolds across Jamaica, Italy, Scotland, England, Wales and southern California.<\/p>\n It tells the story of a runaway bride named Covey and a present-day widow in California named Eleanor Bennett, who leaves previously untold stories to her two children \u2013 enabling them to piece together the strands of their mother\u2019s life they never knew about.<\/p>\n When asked by RadioTimes.com<\/a> about what made her want to bring Black Cake to life on the screen, Cerar said: \u201cA lot of people think that this book was brought to me by all of these very big people, and I said, \u2018Oh, can I please have this job?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is, I read this manuscript when I did not need a job \u2013 I was about to film my first TV show \u2013 and I just said, \u2018I have to adapt this.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018No one else can do it,\u2019 I loved it so much. It has so many personal connections and parallels to my own life \u2013 I\u2019m adopted, my birth mum has a son and a daughter who don\u2019t know I exist. There\u2019s so many things.\u201d<\/p>\n Cerar continued: \u201cBut I just loved the nuanced, elevated people of colour as the main characters in this stunning character drama that was also a murder mystery. I just thought that this is the time for us to have our Big Little Lies<\/a>, our big splashy streaming series.<\/p>\n \u201cI just fell in love with it. Charmaine\u2019s writing is just so beautiful, and I cried every five pages, like a gut punch \u2013 but there\u2019s so much joy in it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just had so much, and it also took us on this amazing rollercoaster of mystery and all over the world. There was just everything as a TV writer and producer, all the things that you want, it was just there.\u201d<\/p> The new drama certainly has very similar undertones to the Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman-led Big Little Lies, in the way the murder mystery unravels and secrets and lies come to the fore.<\/p>\n Talking about why a show like Black Cake is an important one, Cerar added: \u201cFor me, the ensemble of people of colour in a series that is aspirational but deep, it\u2019s about many things.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a Black ocean scientist in southern California, when have I ever seen that character on television or in a movie? We have a half Jamaican, half Chinese protagonist and we see her entire life, we\u2019re in a world that many of us haven\u2019t been.<\/p>\n \u201cThat they are the main characters, they\u2019re not the supporting characters in white women\u2019s stories like we often are, that was, to me, so exciting. And that it wasn\u2019t a story that was about the typical subject matters that we get when we\u2019re the main characters of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The series is led by Mia Isaac (Not Okay<\/a>) as Covey and Chipo Chung (Silo<\/a>) as Eleanor, but also includes British actor Ashley Thomas (The Ipcress File<\/a>) and Tony award-winning Adrienne Warren (Rustin<\/a>).<\/p>\n [squirrel-affiliate-playlist squirrel_playlist_id=\u201d608\u2033 \/]<\/p>\n According to the official synopsis: \u201cIn the late 1960s, a runaway bride named Covey disappears into the surf off the coast of Jamaica, and is feared drowned or a fugitive on the run for her husband\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n \u201cIn present-day California, a widow named Eleanor Bennett loses her battle with cancer, leaving her two estranged children, Byron and Benny, a flash drive that holds previously untold stories of her journey from the Caribbean to America.<\/p>\n \u201cThese stories, narrated by Eleanor, shock her children and challenge everything they thought they knew about their family\u2019s origin.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Mia](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2024\/01\/BlackCake-cast-Covey-691f4c2.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Coventina\\"\/")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n