BritBox Releases First Look Photos for Lenny Henry's 'Three Little Birds'

Sir Lenny Henry's Three Little Birds is one of BritBox's most anticipated imports from the BBC heading this way in 2023. The actor doesn't star in it, however; he wrote it. It's his first TV drama series, based on the story of his own family, which came to England as part of the Windrush generation. Workshopped with the help of Doctor Who's Russell T. Davies, the six-part drama is a 1950s-era period piece, telling a story from English history that's been overlooked by media for nearly a century, and is finally getting its due for the first time.

June 2023 marks 75 years since the arrival of what's known in the U.K. as the "Windrush Generation," a phrase used to refer to the massive influx of people who arrived in England from Caribbean countries starting in 1948 and ending in 1971. The name was derived from the HMT Empire Windrush, a ship that brought 1,029 passengers from the island nation as the first major group of immigrants, which landed in 1948. The ship became a symbol of the wider mass-migration movement sparked by the U.K.'s decision to open its borders to the citizens of any country that was part of the Commonwealth as a way to import labor to rebuild the country after World War II.

For years, the term was usually meant as derogatory, especially in the early 1970s, when a resurgence of nationalism caused the U.K. to end the practice. But with the help of time, distance, and an understanding of the racism faced by those who braved the journey to a new home, the country is looking back on the period with new eyes. The BBC has a documentary coming out this month, Windrush: Portraits Of A Generation, a 75-minute documentary to commemorate National Windrush Day on 22 June 2023. And the network has released the first images from Henry's forthcoming series.