Radio 4
1998 (four programmes)

Lisselle Kayla’s sitcom with a strong satirical premiss: a TV company is looking for a ‘British Oprah’ — someone representative of vibrant, black British youth — to host a new mid-morning chat show.  Discovering this, our vain and somewhat unscrupulous heroine (played by Llewella Gideon) sets about concealing her white adoptive parents and boyfriend and constructing an entire alternative past in order to get the role.  The producers discover the deception, but decide this confirms her as the ideal media star, and the slightly-renamed ‘Emerald’ achieves her dreams of television success.  Well, very nearly…  Jonathan Firth, Sheila Reid and Jonathan Keeble co-starred.