Michaela Coel On The Cost Of Telling The Stories That Matter And Her New Series, ‘First Day On Earth’

I slept for 12 hours when I arrived in Greece. It was like my body immediately knew it needed to just lie down after the past year. Since the first week of January, I’d been non-stop, occasionally writing for up to 20 hours a day for my upcoming series, First Day On Earth. Coming out on a solo trip felt like a necessary pause.

Much of my time was spent resting, reading Alexander Herman’s ‘The Parthenon Marbles Dispute’ and prioritising daily hikes to a quiet beach for calisthenics. Most mornings, the ferocious summer winds dried my hair – a weather phenomenon I later learned is called the Meltemi, ‘a wind coming from the north’. The whole time, I was letting my hair just ‘be’, so in many of the photos I took, it’s giving ‘Black woman at rest’.

My holiday wardrobe was joyful and experimental: I packed a brown Prada dress, bright Dora Larsen bras, and a 16Arlington gown for dinner, because I like to get dressed up, all the way down to my Alighieri grills, no matter if it’s going to be seen or not. I was introduced to the world of Vinted earlier this year by my costume assistant Yimi – I kept seeing items labelled ‘Y2K’ and genuinely thought it was a boutique brand before she kindly explained it was referring to the era – and I’ve been hooked ever since. Now, months after learning the Vinted game, I’m pairing blue kitten heels with unmatched green scarves and pink tops just for the thrill of it.

That week at the One&Only Kéa Island, a secluded hotel in the Cyclades, looking out onto the Aegean sea while surrounded by the perfect balance of natural clifftops and open-air architecture, was not something I took for granted. Looking back now, though, I realise I was lying to myself about the depth of the reset. My mind was still racing, still weaving storylines and dialogue for First Day On Earth.

Perhaps that very state of unconscious processing is why new ideas always come. I believe there is always a trade-off when working on a project: if you want something extraordinary, there is an unavoidable exchange. The bigger the dream, the bigger the cost, and if you don’t pay that cost upfront, you will pay the fine later. I learnt that lesson the hard way when, four years ago, after I May Destroy You, I experienced intense burnout that took a moment to recover from. It forced me to reconcile with the fact that sacrificial work comes at a steep price, but also taught me how to fight for the stories that matter. I was fortunate to have people over at HBO and BBC that have remained fully in my corner. Then, after failing to keep up with the timeline on a past project and getting dropped, I ended up at my dad’s family home in Ghana. It was there that the episodes for First Day On Earth began to pour out of me.

This series had been in the works since 2021, when I spent six months in Ghana. When we returned to shoot the series this year, I interviewed more than 100 people for roles, both Ghanaians born and raised as well as British-Ghanaians of all ages. Each interview lasted three to four hours and the show’s narrative is a weaving together of all those lives and inspirations. It blends fiction and reality in a way that’s hard to describe. I grew up in East London, and like the main character in First Day On Earth, Henri, my parents were born and raised in Ghana. There’s an element of me in her, but her life in the show is not a direct parallel to mine.

We filmed across Ghana and London, and the contrast between filming locations was extraordinary. First, we spent four months shooting with a mix of local and British crew who had never visited West Africa before, forming such deep bonds that many of the crew cried when we wrapped. Moving production to London shifted our pace, but the community on set kept me energised. My producers recruited the absolute best of British TV talent, from lighting riggers to hair and makeup artists, who inspire me to be better every day. Directing this series alongside writing it has taken everything to a completely new level: it’s terrifying when people look to me to direct them on set, but also exhilarating.

The experience of making this project is just as important to me as the final outcome. I am asking a lot of my team, so creating a workplace ecosystem of kindness was non-negotiable. Every single day, I’ve been in shock that this is even happening. The opportunity to make something like this doesn’t come around easily.

Now, I’m back in Ghana to finish up the show. The food – banku, fried yam, chofi – feels like home. Looking back, storytelling has transformed my life. I started off in my career by winning a £50 poetry slam, printing out my own flyers, and having the guts to hand them out to strangers in East London. My creative love language is gift-giving, and First Day On Earth is my gift to the world. I want to wrap it up the absolute best I can, so this year I’ve pushed myself to the brink because creating high-quality, sacrificial work gives us hope. One thing this year has taught me is how to step into new positions of authority and creative control while trying not to burn out. Handing over a fully realised story to the world makes every moment worth it.

First Day On Earth is expected to air in 2027.

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