Paterson Joseph (15:30)

Acclaimed actor Paterson Joseph, who has starred in Vigil and Noughts and Crosses, Peep Show and Law & Order UK, has for twenty years been researching into the extraordinary story of the first black person to vote in Britain, Charles Ignatius Sancho.

In 1746, Georgian London is not a safe place for a young black man, especially one who has escaped slavery.

The man Sancho hoped would help him dodge slave catchers and worse - a kindly duke who taught him to write - is dying. So how does Sancho, desperate and utterly alone, meet the King, write and play highly acclaimed music and lead the fight to end slavery?

Though once timid about his place in the UK Paterson Joseph’s research into Sancho’s story has given him a deep sense of belonging, of a shared history with a nation that sometimes ignores, sometimes rejects, his people’s right to an equal role in its storytelling. He will read from The Secret Diaries and tell this extraordinary real-life story.

Paterson will read from The Secret Diaries and tell this extraordinary real-life story.

In conversation with Charlotte Rostek.

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