3:46pm Friday 26th June 2009
It was deemed highly controversial when it was aired, but the drama White Girl, filmed and set in Bradford, won critical acclaim – and a coveted Bafta.
White Girl told the story through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl of contrasting cultures when a white family relocates to an Asian community in Bradford .
Leah feels isolated when she finds she and her siblings are the only white children at school. Much of the filming was centred around the communities of Leeds Road. The film crew also used Lillycroft Primary School and Abubker Mosque.
Debbie, played by Anna Maxwell Martin, is her illiterate mum with an abusive partner. When she decides enough is enough and moves her family out of their council flat, the family turns up at their new home to discover they have been rehoused in a predominantly Asian area of Bradford where they are the only white family.
The one-off drama formed the centrepiece of BBC2’s White Season, a series of programmes exploring what it means to be white and working class in Britain screened last year. A documentary – Last Orders, filmed at Wibsey Working Men’s Club – was shown on BBC2 as part of the season.
City leaders criticised filmmakers for choosing Bradford as the setting. But writer Abi Morgan said: “The heart of the film comes from Bradford, and I hope it is a true reflection of Bradford.”
At the glittering TV Bafta awards ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall earlier this year, the British stars of critically-acclaimed US series The Wire, Dominic West and Idris Elba, presented the Bafta for single drama to the makers of White Girl.
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