Channel 4's eight-part drama series introduces us to a young Black woman’s value and the unrelenting trials and tribulations of life

Monday: Queenie (Channel 4, 10pm & 10.35pm)

Many writers dream of success, but for many, it never comes.

That certainly has not been the case for Candice Carty-Williams, despite the fact she once stated in The Lewisham Ledger that “writing is something I came to really late… because I never thought it was an attainable career.”

How wrong she was!

Queenie is based on the bestselling novel by Candice Carty-Williams

Last year, Champion, a drama series she created about a pair of South London siblings whose musical dreams threatened to drive them apart, aired. Now she’s heading back to the small screen, this time with an eight-part adaptation of Queenie, her award-winning debut novel, which has been likened to Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary.

“I read the book when I was too young probably, I stole it from my aunt’s book shelf,” she smiles now. “I just thought it was really funny; I grew up around a lot of funny women and so it really chimed with me.

“And I got older and watched the films, I thought they were amazing, really fun. I think deep down I always wanted to make something like that.”

The central character is Queenie Jenkins (played by Dionne Brown), a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman who doesn’t feel quite at home in either culture. When we first meet her during the drama’s opening double-bill, she’s also having a very bad time – her long-term boyfriend Tom (Big Boys’ Jon Pointing) has announced he thinks it’s time they took a break.

As a result, Queenie seeks solace in the wrong places and with the wrong people, something that makes her realise that if she’s going to move forward, she must first confront her past.

Sally Phillips, Samuel Adewumni, rising R&B singer Bellah and Joseph Marcell who, to some will always be Geoffrey, the butler in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, are also set to appear.

“I can’t imagine bringing Queenie to life without each member of this exciting and enviable cast,” says Carty-Williams. “Each of these actors has brought their own essence to each role, breathing new life into this adaptation, and revitalising my own relationships with characters who have lived in my head for almost a decade.

“I can’t wait for viewers to see the chemistry, the talent and the brilliance of Queenie, her family and her friends, her lovers and her frenemies.”

She also claims that bringing the show to the screen was “a very long process,” adding: “We were on set for 48 days and we were in post-production for 200 days and so I did not realise I would have to give so much of my life to television, but it’s all worth it.”

Carty-Williams also received support from one of the biggest names in TV at the moment: “The person who helped me navigate this was Jesse Armstrong, because he is my agent’s friend. He sat me down and said ‘make sure you write what you want to write’. I took on of that what I could; he’s been an incredible mentor.”

And if Queenie turns out to be as good as Armstrong’s mega-hit Succession, we’re all in for a massive treat.