Washington Black TV series: Bright and colourful adaptation of Booker Prize-shortlisted book

It’s always tricky to get the tone right on a story like Washington Black.

Based on the Booker Prize-shortlisted novel by Canadian author Esi Edugyan, the eight part series is set in the early 19th century and mines some heavy subjects including enslavement, racism and violence.

But it’s also an adventure story about hope, ambition and love.

The challenge is to bring a lightness and optimism to a tale that lives in a world where there is so much darkness, but without diminishing the severity of the threat or making it seem twee or slight.

On that, the jury is out, at least in the first four of the eight episodes made available for review.

The visual palette is bright and colourful, which is not a problem in itself, but there’s a gloss to Washington Black – the sky and the water are both super blue, the landscapes are verdant and the costumes aren’t worn-in enough – that it can bump you out of its world.

Of course, no one wants to watch gratuitous torture porn, and stories about Black suffering as if it’s the only valid historical experience are one-dimensional and reductive, but there is also a line where the sheen only heightens the artificiality of any production. You don’t want it to be distracting.

Told across two interwoven timelines, George Washington Black is the story of a character who grew up on a plantation in Barbados. As a young boy (Eddie Karanja), he meets Christopher “Titch” Wilde (Tom Ellis), the brother of the plantation owner.

Titch is a scientist with great plans for a flying machine he calls the Cloud Cutter. Titch recognises an intelligence, curiosity and artistry in Wash, and he takes him out of the field and into his confidence as his apprentice.

Wash’s childhood cuts back and forth with the second timeline, when Wash is a young man (Ernest Kingsley Jr) who lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, now going by the name Jack Crawford.

He is under the tutelage of Medwin Harris (Sterling K. Brown) and his wife Angie (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), who protect their community in this town that is the last stop of the Underground Railroad, which had helped enslaved persons escape the US.

Wash becomes enamoured with a new arrival in town, Tanna Goff (Iola Evans), the biracial daughter of marine biologist G.M. Goff (Rupert Graves). Tanna was born on the Soloman Islands to a native woman but has been “passing” for white. The two left London under a cloud of mini-scandal, hoping to start anew.

While Tanna and Wash hit it off, her hand has been promised to the wealthy dock-owner Billy McGee (Edward Bluemel).

Another complicating factor is sadistic slavecatcher Willard (Billy Boyd), who has tracked Wash down to Halifax after he eluded the bounty hunter many years earlier.

As the story progresses, the layers are peeled back on what happened in between Wash’s early days and how he ended up in Canada, a story that involves experimental science, fleeing the plantation, pirates, and a trip to the Arctic.

It’s a charming series and the characters are very appealing with histories and fates you want to invest in. Kingsley Jr and Brown are able to draw on the innate goodness of Wash, while Brown, as always, has great reserves of emotional heft that he can draw upon when called on to, which he is. Brown is also a producer on the show.

It’s just whether you can set aside the shininess of its production, and plough on with a story that’s worth unfolding, centred on characters who are allowed to be than just a victim in history. Wash and his compatriots have dreams, desires and hope, not just painful pasts.

It’s always on the edge – and that has little to do with the flying balloon – dancing on either side of disbelief. Ultimately, whether Washington Black works will depend on how it sticks the landing in the second half of the season.

Washington Black is on Disney+ from July 23 with all episodes available at once