Hulu Releases the First Look at 'Queenie'

Candice Carty-Williams' Champion arrived on Netflix in January with little marketing and has since been a sleeper hit thanks to the streaming service's algorithm and word-of-mouth. Now her second series, but her first hit from across the pond, Queenie, is heading to the small screen for the spring of 2024. Based on Carty-Williams' best-selling novel, which became the first book to win the Best British Novel by a Black author, the series, which is a co-production from Channel 4 and Hulu's Onyx Collective, has released its first images.

The eight-part drama series will air on Channel 4 before it arrives in America on Hulu in June 2024. The series stars Dionne Brown, who only just recently broke out thanks to her role in Apple TV+'s Criminal Record, in the titular role. The 25-year-old British-Jamaican Queenie Jenkins has just been dumped by her long-term boyfriend, Tom, played by Jon Pointing (Big Boys); the series is billed as "a razor-sharp, utterly honest, blisteringly funny and achingly yet beautifully relatable series, full of as much heart and soul as the lady herself. At its core, it’s a story about a young Black woman’s value and the unrelenting trials and tribulations of life."

Like Champion, Queenie will introduce new Black British talent to the screen, cast R&B stars in prominent roles, and include music and the score as a major part of the story. Though it is not quite as musically based as the Netflix series, Carty-Williams' series is steeped in modern Black British culture and gives viewers a slice of the U.K. that American television has sorely lacked.