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Doctor Who Star Ncuti Gatwa Helps Gatsby in Harlem Improve on Original

Gatsby in Harlem is one of the best dramas of the year, with Malachi Kirby and Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa the standouts as tragic friends.


BBC Radio 3's Gatsby in Harlem might be one of BBC audio drama's crowning achievements, even if it has to use Ncuti Gatwa from Doctor Who as a gateway drug to attract an audience. Acclaimed playwright Roy Williams has set F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in 1920s Harlem with an African-American (played by an Afr0-British A-list cast). The result is the same story but with a sharper social and political commentary where the characters enhance the original story with the added layer of African-American cultural history.

Doctor Who Stars Ncuti Gatwa to Lead Gatsby in Harlem for BBC Radio 3
Doctor Who stars Ncuti Gatwa and Gugu Mbatha-Raw with Malachi Kirby in "Gatsby in Harlem": BBC

Yeah, Yeah, Go Ahead and Imagine it's a Doctor Who Side Story for Fun

It's easy to imagine this as an alternate universe story from Fitzgerald or even a Doctor Who tale where the Doctor decides to go to 1929 Harlem to cosplay as Jay Gatsby just to see what it's like before he comes back in season two on Disney+ and BBC One this year. Yes, the latter is very amusing. It's just the kind of thing this Doctor would do when he's going around Space and Time by himself without a companion to keep him grounded, and he has to keep himself amused somehow. Who's to say the Doctor wouldn't go create an entire life and identity to live out to its end? He's done it before. Anyway, this should not downplay writer Roy Williams' brilliant adaptation.

As with the original, WWI veteran Nick Carraway (Malachi Kirby) decides to move to New York to start a new life, but in this case, he's also leaving behind the racism and Jim Crow laws of the South. He discovers the freedom and excitement of the Jazz Age, but also the new freedoms enjoyed by African-Americans in Harlem as the Renaissance kicks off. He befriends the enigmatic Jay Gatsby (Gatwa), whose wealth and identity are kept in rumour and whispers. When Gatsby reunites with Daisy Buchanan (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), his childhood sweetheart and Nick's distant cousin, to rekindle their affair that leads to tragedy.

It's like Nick has become the Doctor's companion here, except Gatsby makes the big mistakes that lead to his downfall. Yeah, yeah, we know you're reading this because of Doctor Who, but if that's what it takes to get you interested in a BBC radio play, we're going for it. Gatsby in Harlem is really Malachi Kirby's show as the narrator and witness to the unfolding tragedy, but Gatwa's Gatsby dominates the story since it's his presence that causes everything to happen. The real relationship is between Nick and Gatsby since Gatwa plays it with an edge of seduction in all his scenes, even at his most desperate, and Daisy never rises above a cipher like she did in the book, and she's always been an evil person.

How Gatsby in Harlem is Better than the Original The Great Gatsby

Roy Williams has redesigned every character from top to bottom so that the African-American reimagining is more than skin-deep. Nick isn't less passive and has a stronger opinion on the proceedings than the book version. Tom Buchanan was always a monster. In the original story, he's a brutish white supremacist. This version of Buchanan is equally insecure and brutish but driven by his internalized racism towards the poor and black people from the South. Williams' more objective eye points out that Daisy is every bit a callous, selfish monster that Fitzgerald suggested but could never bring himself to say since the character was inspired by Fitzgerald's own teenage sweetheart. Gatsby in Harlem climaxes not with the funeral but with Nick giving Tom and Daisy the contemptuous moral dressing down they always deserved, and more forcefully than Fitzgerald did in his version. It may not be the greatest punishment, but what Tom and Daisy fear most is to be thought of badly, and Nick makes his moral disgust at them clear. This version of Nick Carraway is less passive than the original book version and ends with Nick not in self-pitying despair but a greater sense of moral determination to keep going with his life.

The book ended with a disillusioned Nick giving up on New York and vowing to return to the Midwest. Gatsby in Harlem suggests that Nick would stay in Harlem to make a life with the other people who are free from the tragic legacies of the South, part of which led to Gatsby's downfall because he couldn't let go of the past. This version of Nick Carraway doesn't come to hate New York like Fitzgerald's does – he still sees hope in the people finding new freedom to forge their lives and identities in Harlem, a promise Gatsby embodied, and reserves his anger for the careless, arrogant, rich like Tom and Daisy. The sharper class commentary here is something British playwrights come to more naturally than many American writers. Unlike Gatsby, Nick has learned his lesson from Gatsby's tragedy and will vow to do better in his friend's honor. Roy Williams' final message is that romantic self-pity and disillusionment is a time-wasting privilege for white men – people of color are too busy creating a world they want to live in. In the end, Gatsby in Harlem is as hopeful as Doctor Who.

Gatsby in Harlem Parts 1 and 2 are streaming for free worldwide on the BBC. The BBC is canceling further audio dramas on Radio 3 this year as part of its cutbacks, which is shortsighted. This play is a prime example of the corporation once again throwing out its crown jewels because it takes them for granted.

Gatsby in Harlem

Doctor Who Stars Ncuti Gatwa to Lead Gatsby in Harlem for BBC Radio 3
Review by Adi Tantimedh

10/10
With the second part complete, this adaptation of The Great Gatsby is one of the great dramas of 2025 even if it's in audio only. The unfolding tragedy stays faithful to the original book but adds a sharper social and political commentary with its Harlem setting and African-American characters, with Malachi Kirby and Ncuti Gatwa the standout heart of the story as a clear-eyed witness to the tragic downfall of his friend.

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Adi TantimedhAbout Adi Tantimedh

Adi Tantimedh is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote radio plays for the BBC Radio, “JLA: Age of Wonder” for DC Comics, “Blackshirt” for Moonstone Books, and “La Muse” for Big Head Press. Most recently, he wrote “Her Nightly Embrace”, “Her Beautiful Monster” and “Her Fugitive Heart”, a trilogy of novels featuring a British-Indian private eye published by Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster.
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