**What was Malorie Blackman’s inspiration for Noughts & Crosses?**

The adaptation is based on the first book in Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses series for young adults, which won a number of prizes when it was published in 2001. The novel was also a response from Blackman to the awful handling by police of the brutal and racist murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence, who was killed in 1993.

The author told Stylist last year: “From the time I started writing, I’d always have people saying to me, ‘why aren’t you writing about racism overtly? It got on my nerves because, despite being a black author, I can write about other things.”

On announcing the adaptation back in 2016, Charlotte Moore, director of BBC Content, described it as “the definitive book for a young adult audience” featuring “superb, high octane compulsive storytelling set within an alternative history that explores really relevant themes about race, privilege and how we treat each other”.

Noughts & Crosses: everything you need to know about the BBC’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s books