What happens when you pluck five gifted Black students from inner-city London and drop them off at a posh, all-white boarding school in need of some serious DEI reform? You get a timely and somehow comical dialogue about the trickle-down effects of institutional racism, spurred by the British dramedy “Boarders.”

The high-energy comedy-of-age series, created by Daniel Lawrence Taylor (“Timewasters”), follows the shenanigans of five Black teenagers who receive scholarships to one of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious boarding schools after a controversial viral video calls the school’s cultural attitudes into question. With just six episodes, viewers witness the crew of friends – played by Josh Tedeku, Jodie Campbell, Myles Kamwendo, Sekou Diaby, and Aruna Jalloh — navigate unfamiliar territory plagued by elitism, tone-deaf teachers, slave paintings, racial adversity, and unrealistic expectations for its less-than-diverse student body. 

The show itself — which debuted on BBC and premiered in North America as a Tubi Original on March 8 — is the definition of art imitating life, as Lawrence Taylor says its inspiration stems from his own higher education experience and an actual news article with a similar tale. “A lot of the things that they were talking about resonated with my life quite a bit,” he explains. “So I thought, oh, that seems like some good ground to delve into some issues but do it in a fun, inventive way.” 

BET.com spoke to the television creator about making “Boarders,” the cultural phenomenons and TV giants that helped influence it, and how he hopes it resonates with audiences.

BET.com: How did you get your start in acting and television creation?

Daniel Lawrence Taylor: So I started doing stand-up comedy many, many, many years ago. Then, I've always really enjoyed acting, so I transitioned into that, and a lot of the scripts that I was reading whilst auditioning, I was like, "Oh, I feel like I could probably do this," which was a little bit cocky of me. Then I got into writing. One of the first scripts I ever wrote was called “Timewasters,” which I eventually developed into a TV show, and I've just had the bug ever since. 

BET.com: Where did the inspiration for “Boarders” come from?

DLT: So “Boarders” was from an article that I was shown, which was about five young Black boys who were given scholarships to a private school out in the sticks, a place called Rugby. The school was very middle, upper-class, very white, and very privileged. The whole article talked about their battles of surviving in that world, and it resonated a lot with me from where I grew up in South London, which was quite poor, predominantly Black, and I went to a university that was predominantly white, very middle class, and a completely different world to my own. A lot of the things that they were talking about resonated with my life quite a bit. So I thought, oh, that seems like some good ground to delve into some issues but do it in a fun, inventive way.

BET.com: You’ve cited films like “Mean Girls” and “Superbad” and even TV shows like “Sex Education” as influences for “Boarders.” What about the coming-of-age subgenre do you find most intriguing?

DLT: I think it's because we've all gone through it. You know what I mean? We've all had those awkward years. What “Mean Girls,” “Superbad,” and Sex Education do so well is they hit that perfectly. Growing up, those '80s,'90s, and '00s films it was always beautiful people onscreen. “Superbad” really leans into probably where I sat, super geeky, trying my best to find the girls, and so I think that it was just a perfect place, and I feel like that was the experience for most people. We have big shows over here like “Derry Girls” and “The Inbetweeners,” which do a similar thing, hit that period of life really, really nicely. I wanted to delve into that, but I wanted to use the backdrop of elitism and race and class to look at it differently. So it's still a coming-of-age but from a very particular experience, yet it's something I think we can all relate to.

BET.com: You’ve also said Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You” and Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” resonated with you because they used humor to explore institutional racism. In what ways did those shows inform your approach to “Boarders?”

DLT: They [reflect] what I feel the Black community goes through on a daily basis; that we persevere and we know how to push through life, and sometimes we have to shake it off or laugh it off, which sounds a bit like there's a darkness to it, but I think it's how we survive where we have to. When things get a little bit rough or rocky, we've got to laugh it off, so I feel like that is what's important. When you have shows like “Atlanta” or “I May Destroy You,” even when it hits those very deep, dark moments, they're still able to find the light, and that really connects with me. I feel like, for an audience, there's a really good connection there when you can hit that sweet point. That's the stuff that does it for me. I find it uncomfortable when I'm watching trauma because there are only so many times that I can watch a Black person be lashed by a white master. I want laughter and joy, and I want Black joy, and I love that onscreen. Sometimes, just because people are going through adversity doesn't mean that they don't see humor as well.

BET.com: Exactly. I feel like that's more reflective of where we are today. Including humor feels like it captures more of our experiences in totality versus, like you said, harping on the trauma and dark stuff all the time. We still laugh, too.

DLT: Oh, 100%. I think that's what I think of [when I picture] Blackness; it's joy and community. The reason why we are a community is because we've had adversity throughout our entire existence. That's what binds us. But we are able to find joy, and that's what I want to put on screen. So even though there are moments in “Boarders” that make you flinch, what is joyful about that is these young Black kids are persevering, and they're still moving forward.

BET.com: Talk to me about the cast. Each of the five leads plays very distinct characters who help round out this arc of being Black and navigating boarding school life. How did you choose those actors?

DLT: We had an amazing casting director, Rosalie Clayton, and she did the conventional ways of going through agents and finding actors. But some of the people she found, particularly Sekou, who plays Toby, he was found on Twitter. She just sent out a casting call on Twitter and said, "Send in your audition tapes," and he sent it in, and he was brilliant. That was one of the many ways [we cast]. It was a mixture of single auditions, and then we also did an audition where we got the main five together. It was really lovely that my casting director, in between scenes, left the tape running. She just wanted to see how they interacted with one another even when they weren't acting. It was really lovely to see because when we got the tapes back, [I said], "That's the group. That's the group I want."

BET.com: “Boarders” isn’t the first time you’ve tackled the subject of being young and Black in white spaces on television. You did the same thing with “Timewasters,” which you also created and starred in. What did you learn most from that experience, and how did it influence the creation of “Boarders”?

DLT: I think having done “Timewasters” before moving on to “Boarders,” from a very simplistic point of view in terms of how something on paper will end up on the screen, I know the processes of how to do that. Creatively though, “Timewasters” was straight comedy, and [with “Boarders”] I wanted to hit a bit more drama. What people are connecting with a lot more in this show is the characters are much more rounded. I think “Timewasters” was very much just about jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, whereas this one, I really wanted people to connect with it, so I made sure that those characters were very rounded. That's why the casting process was such a big process, and we were making sure we got the right ones, because not only on paper was I making sure that I had five very distinct, fully-rounded characters, but the actors, as you can see from the show, they really make those characters their own.

It was very much about me making sure that they had enough to work with, and then we also found the very best actors to bring even more roundness to make sure that these characters really shine on screen. So, I learned how to put characters on screen that you really fall in love with, and you can relate to. Even though I use the window of race, the show is about otherness, and I think that's something that we can all relate to, whether it's gender or sexuality. The majority, we all know that sense of otherness in spaces. I think that was what was key, and that definitely comes across in the show.

BET.com: There’s been lots of chatter lately about the mass cancellation of Black shows and the short shelf life for diverse stories on TV. What’s it like being a Black creator in the midst of this?

DLT: It's tricky because there are pluses and minuses. The plus, particularly over here in the UK, is that there are so much more Black shows. Just the other day, I went to a dinner with Black creatives, people that made “Dreaming Whilst Black” and “Mood” and all these really great shows that we have over here. It was amazing that we all sat around the table together. But whilst we were talking to one another, we were all very aware of the shelf life of our shows. My show “Timewasters” was one of those after the second [season] that was canceled. It's very unsettling. At the same time, I just like our stories need to be told. From my personal point of view, even if my shows are canceled, I’ll continue and keep pushing through because there is a space and there's an audience. It's a shame when they are canceled, but we just have to keep going. I take my hat off to people like Tyler Perry or Issa Rae, who’s setting up her own studio, where people are just like, "You know what? I'm going to just do it myself." So hopefully, that will be a new avenue.

BET.com: Audiences are craving stories like “Boarders” even more now since it seems like they don’t stick around long enough. What do you hope your show does to satisfy that need for viewers?

DLT: I think you're going to love these characters. Stepping into this world, it all came from a very personal experience, but I am also aware that, as Black people, we step into these institutions in very different ways, and that's why I wanted five different characters to [capture that]. I want people to go away watching the show and saying, "That's a bit of me, he's a bit of me, she's a bit of me," and connect in that sense. I want people who have not experienced that to still connect with it in a way. I'm so proud of those five actors because they really give a real heart to all these characters, and I think an audience will really connect with them. When we were talking about shows like “Sex Education,” it's because we connect with those characters because we see ourselves in them. I want “Boarders” to be the same thing, and I think it is. 

“Boarders” is streaming now on Tubi.