Shirley Bassey drama for BBC2
Dame Shirley Bassey’s life is set to be made into a TV drama to be screened as part of a season on ethnic diversity in the UK.
The programme will document her early life growing up in Cardiff in the 1950s as the daughter of a Welsh mum and a Nigerian seaman dad – who abandoned the family before she was two – before she found fame singing the theme to classic James Bond film Goldfinger.
Up until now the 74-year-old has given very few interviews about her life as a mixed-race child, growing up in the tough Tiger Bay area of Cardiff, her teen pregnancy, and her rise to fame. However, this drama will reveal all.
The programme will be one of a three-part series called Mixed Race Britannia which will include a documentary about a set of twins with different skin colours, and another drama, Dancing On The Edge – written by Steven Poliakoff. It tells the story of a black jazz band whose lead singer is murdered in 1930s London.
The series is set to air later this summer.
via Orange UK.
