After It Wins Big At The TV BAFTAs, Why I May Destroy You Deserved Every Plaudit It Received

I May Destroy You is one of the most acclaimed British television programmes of recent years. Written by and starring Michaela Coel, it has just won the Virgin Media TV BAFTA for Best Mini-Series and for Best Actress, following three BAFTA TV Craft Award wins last week. Here Donna Mabey, Line Producer on the searing drama, tells Grazia why it deserved every plaudit it received.

I May Destroy You was the last production I got to work on in a pre-Covid world. The last stretch of editing and post-production was the first in a Covid world. Whilst the country was turned on its head, the team were, true to form, adapting and keenly finishing it for the channel. No delays, a blinkered drive to the finish line.

When I May Destroy You came to the screens in Lockdown 1.0, the landscape was one no one envisioned. And yet, its reception was both as great as we could have hoped but could never guarantee.

It aired at a time when most of us were made numb from watching the news, and this first- hand account of a person’s very human experience of all kinds of brutal, vulnerable, truth jolted everyone. All those mixed-up human layers that didn’t shy away were maybe what we needed.

Along the way, we weren’t sure if it would be well received, or if the audience would fully understand it, but that seemed to be secondary to the cathartic service the production process was providing.

On reading the early script way back in May 2019, I thought it was unique, strong but felt off-kilter. So of course, I wanted to be a part of it. It was also a very important project. Not only full of topics that hadn’t been addressed in such a way before, but because it was rooted in someone’s reality. This was Michaela’s story, to be told the way she wanted to tell it. These were feelings felt, thoughts thought the way she had experienced them, that could never be denied or allow logic to steam in and skew.

From each production to the next, we try and take elements of the success stories with us, but I’ll be lucky to experience a production like that again. It was the most auteur-like method I’ve seen in television production. That alone should be heralded. The company support and collaborative approach to allow Michaela’s story to evolve was unlike anything I’ve been a part of before. To be given time to try things out, to all re-group in a shooting day to discuss and if needs be, completely flip, is generally avoided at all costs, but it was necessary.

Generally, once a project is written and we go to shoot, the train is in motion. Locomotive metaphors are used a lot in film making: ‘runaway train’ (when it’s not going so well), ‘steam ahead’ (when it is). Someone once used the phrase ‘it’s Michaela’s train set’, in reference to her choices, using the elements of screen language as she sees fit. But truth is, it wasn’t always even a train set. Sometimes a piece of Lego got thrown in, maybe some Playdough. Whatever it took to convey the story or evoke a certain feeling. It was energising.

Staying true to that was the fuel which kept us all going in the long night shoots, the once 7- day working week or fast-paced changes. We were all on board this ‘train’ now, as Michaela was ever-generous in bringing us into the fold of her journey. Telling everyone that it was a series that belonged to everyone now: ‘our baby.’

It was a freeing experience, and everyone rolled with it because we also knew that, no matter what, Michaela was working the hardest of all. Writing, acting, co-directing every day and managing the emotional side of it all whilst always humble, always curious to what everyone was doing. Making I May Destroy You required a stamina like no-other that never wavered, and she showed us how to do it.

As much as this is based on Michaela’s personal experience, this really did become everyone’s, with all the blood, sweat and ingenuity that went into it. And as with any baby, you can only hope for it to fly high and succeed as this show, and Michaela, so deserve.

I May Destroy is available on BBC iPlayer

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