Michael Abbensetts

“Much of Abbensetts drama has focused on issues of race and power, but he has always been reluctant to be seen as restricted to issue–based drama. His dialogue is concerned with the development and growth of character, and he is fundamentally aware of the methods and contexts for his actors.”

“[On Empire Road] The television series was unique not only because it was the first soap operas to be conceived and written by a black writer for a black cast but also because it was specifically about the British–Caribbean experience.”

“[T]he best Black playwright to emerge from his generation.”

“White people are not aware of the many differences within the black community [...] There differences of class, of generation. You can tell immediately when you go into a Guyanan home like that of the petit-bourgeois character that Norman Beaton plays, compared with the garish colours of the Jamaican ones—which I found are toned down in the Jamaicans of London.”

“How many years have we got to live in this country before they stop calling us immigrants?”