Michaela Coel Sets ‘I May Destroy You’ Follow-Up at HBO, BBC

Creator of I May Destroy You and its lead, Michaela Coel, will next write for and star in a new show for HBO and the BBC. 
 
The two stations will make the new series First Day on Earth written and presented by Coel, who will play a young British writer, Henri, who takes job to work on a film shoot in Ghana, her parents’ home country. The new series is from Various Artists Limited which was founded by Succession’s Jesse Armstrong and other members and produced I May Destroy You and supported by A24. 
 
“It has been a joy to be able to work again with VAL, HBO and the BBC, and to be collaborating with A24, with the help of everyone’s good taste, attentiveness and skill, I really believe our show is in good hands,” Coel said in a statement. “First Day on Earth is yet another close-to-the-heart story that I am keen on sharing with global audiences – with Henri, everyone out there, and I truly look forward to people going through this heroine’s experience. ” 
 
The description of the series reads: “British novelist Henri (Coel) is a young woman adrift from her career to her relationship. She is offered a job in a Ghana, West Africa – the country of her parents, her estranged father. Henri goes and neither the job nor her father are as she expected them to be, and soon she has to face danger and hypocrisy, make new friends, lose her innocence, and finally try to build a new persona for herself that 
 
‘I May Destroy You’ was one of the most talked-about shows of 2020. Coel received an Emmy for outstanding writing for a limited series and BAFTA TV awards for the best miniseries, her acting, and writing and directing alongside Sam Miller. First Day on Earth will be the first series project from Coel since then. 
 
“The way Michaela speaks is as good as any writer I’ve seen in my time period, period This I’m really looking forward to picking up the mantle as begun with I May Destroy You and creating with some of our closest partners at VAL, A24 and the BBC,” said Amy Gravitt, executive vp comedy programming at HBO and Max. In First Day on Earth, with Henri as our master, tour guide, or narrator, respectively, it’s poetic and thoroughly physical in the way it mines the concept of ‘home. ’ 
 
As noted, we added Lindsay Salt, the director of BBC Drama to the list ‘I am delighted that Michaela is joining BBC Drama. She is one of those talents, whose work I have always appreciated. I May Destroy You is one of the reasons why I was eager to join BBC! First Day on Earth is yet another remarkable series by Michaela. Unique, touching, witty, and poetic, it is yet another masterpiece by her and I 
 
Coel is developing First Day on Earth, set to be written and directed by her with Armstrong; the series will be exec produced by Armstrong, Phil Clarke, and Roberto Troni for Various Artists Limited, Jo McClellan for BBC, and Piers Wenger for A24. Production is planned for the year 2025. 
 
Clarke and Troni added, ‘We are thrilled and feel very grateful that Michaela decided to bring her fantastic new show to us after the amazing time we had co-working on I May Destroy You. ” Once again, Michaela has produced a unique, idiosyncratic, well-rehearsed metafiction of second generation British-Ghanaian woman who takes the chance of return back to her parents’ country and meets wonderful characters and circumstances which make her face the painful truth about her home. As always with Michaela the story is as shocking, funny and unforgettable as ever and told in Michaela’s way.