Sam: A Teenage Girl

Comedy Drama. Coming-of-age TV pilot and series. 8 x 30 minute episodes. Set in Southall & Ealing, West London, United Kingdom. Late 1990s. This world is set roughly in-between the Ealing and Hounslow areas of West London in 1998. The intention with this world is to explore the complexities of London multi-ethnic culture set in a particular time period and viewed through the eyes of a seventeen year old girl. The first episode depicts the very beginning of their friendship, their romantic subtext and the initial inner conflict Samarrah (’Sam’) feels between everything she has been taught to know, and the temptation of new and thrilling experience. The protagonist (and her object of affection) both have vivid imaginations, and happen to be gifted in art (and in Beeb’s case: music). They go to the sixth form of a London grammar school (Greenlane High School), where Sam has been a reserved and unpopular student since the age of 11, and Beeb has joined afresh. References to the society and politics of the time, e.g. The Iraq war and Tony Blair, are also peppered throughout the script. Because Sam is artistic and we are having her world shared with us, the screenplay also intends for some sporadic use of graphics, as she loves to doodle and illustrate. For commercial purposes I am playing with musical nostalgia from the 90s to bring a wholesome and relatable story to audiences. Sam loves 90s sugar pop and boybands, while Beeb introduces her to grunge rock for the first time. An alternative title I came up with for this series, ‘And He Created You’, is inspired by a 15th century Arab poem from the book, ‘Classical Poems by Arab Women’. The short poem expresses a lot of what I intend for my protagonist to feel: ‘One morning Allah visited the earth but the sun was not in sight./Allah said: ‘The earth is still dark?’/And He created You.’ The original 60-page TV pilot version of this script, the first episode, has been nominated for multiple awards, including the New York International Screenplay Awards in 2021.