Dark Mon£y's writer says it isn't based on any specific Hollywood sexual abuse scandals
BBC One's Dark Mon£y has been applauded by viewers for its sensitive depiction of child abuse and accurate exposure of the murky world of Hollywood where power and money trumps justice.
The four-part series follows an ordinary working class couple whose 13-year-old son Isaac has his big break after being cast in a Hollywood movie. When he returns back home, he tells his parents Sam [Jill Halfpenny] and Manny [Babou Ceesay] that he was sexually abused by the filmmaker.
But when they confront the movie studio with sound footage of the assault that Isaac filmed on his phone, they feel powerless when faced with going up against the US justice system, and instead accept a substantial pay-off for their silence.
While the drama reflects the Hollywood sexual harassment scandal which engulfed the industry in 2017, writer Levi David Addai revealed he came up with the show's premise before allegations of sexual misconduct entered the mainstream.
He said that the idea formed after he started taking his daughter to drama school and observed how fellow parents completely entrusted the teachers with their children; ferrying them around to auditions which would be made up of mostly adults.
He said he was intrigued by how the possibility of fame for their children had the power to "blind certain decisions you might make as a parent".
"It was really interesting to see how trusting the parents were with people that they didn't know," the writer explained to Cosmopolitan UK and others at a press screening.
"They were part of this arena which was performing arts, and such was their hopes and dreams for their children to go, 'yes, sure push my child into that', and I was a bit disturbed by this.
"I was thinking, you don't know these people, they're strangers and you're trusting your child to be left with these people, to be ferried around and be amongst mostly adults. What is that? Why do people do that?
"This family came together from that, and when you have a child who has the possibility of entering a career that is totally different from the family's background. And how the glitz and the glamour, how that can blind certain decisions you might make as a parent."
Levi said it was crucial for him to develop this family to the end, and not to change their story despite claims of sexual abuse enveloping other industries.
"I began developing the idea and writing the script before those stories became mainstream, I was in this weird position as it was getting closer to being green lit, it [the claims] just exploded. For me personally - I know these things, it's not big news for me. I was fortunate enough that I could to continue telling my story, though there was temptation to do [other industries that were also affected].
"I remember the football scandal came out, and there was a suggestion that perhaps that was a different industry we could look at, but this is a story about this family. Everything I do is about the characters, people, humans and their stories. It was important to continue to tell the story I was creating with family and see it to its end," he conceded.
Dark Mon£y airs on BBC One at 9pm.
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