Although the documentary was formulaic. The late Andrea Levy was very candid with interviewer Alan Yentob. It was this that made the show stand out.
The show had contributors who admired her work, the actors who appeared in the television adaptations of her novels.
It was Levy herself who was interesting and revealing. She views footage of her father and others arriving from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation. They were smartly dressed but the reception they got in the mother country was far from smart. Britain even now still perpetuates the myth that they have always welcomed immigrants.
The same Windrush immigrants who arrived as kids now being forcibly deported. Levy punctured such rosy pictures, she herself was a victim of casual racism when growing up. It was both interesting and frightening to hear that even in the mid 1990s when she worked for the BBC in costumes. White performers were uncomfortable being dressed up by a black person.
Her stint at the BBC was short lived. Levy as a writer faced rejection from publishers and worked her way up to be a celebrated writer. She found how art mirrored real life when she found out about her own mixed race history that was similar to her novel, The Long Song.
Levy also talked about her breast cancer which came in the way of her writing. When the program was first broadcast, Levy would had known then her time was short.