Exclusive: BBC One and Victoria producer Mammoth Screen have set rising UK filmmaker Kibwe Tavares to direct the first three episodes of anticipated drama Noughts And Crosses, I have learned. The producers have also brought on Being Human creator Toby Whithouse to oversee scripting. The team is gearing up to shoot the dystopian Ya adaptation later this year as a 6x60min drama and there are discussions going on at the moment to potentially bring aboard a sizeable U.S. partner.

Overseas interest is understandable. Malorie Blackman’s buzzed-about Ya book series takes place in an alternate 21st-century Britain in which whites and blacks are segregated following centuries in which Africans had a technological and infrastructural superiority over Europeans who they made their slaves. The series, first announced in summer 2016, will chart the forbidden love story between ‘Cross’ Sephy, a member of the black ruling class and daughter of a prominent politician,...