In ‘Riches,’ blended family vies for control of Black-owned firm
There’s a new TV drama about the exploits of a stylish, privileged and super-successful fictional family whose scheming members are at each other’s throats. They make the folks at “Succession” look almost functional.
“Riches,” now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is set in the corporate suites of a Black-owned cosmetics giant in England whose patriarch leaves behind turmoil after dying in the first episode. As the business hangs in the balance, his different sets of children collide as they vie for control.
“I thought it was a great opportunity to write something that was fun and frothy and entertaining, but also had a bedrock of something more substantive to say about Black ownership, Black ambition and power structures,” says Abby Ajayi, the show’s creator and writer.
The result is an enthralling mix of high-end soap opera and dynastic legal backstabbing with social commentary about everything from police racism to journalistic discrimination and corporate ethics. Deborah Ayorinde, one of its stars, has a shortcut when she describes it to friends: “Beautiful rich people behaving badly.”
Ayorinde plays Nina, one of two estranged children from her father’s first marriage, who have both established themselves in business in America. But their father in his final days seemed to trust them more than his English children and shockingly leaves the empire in their hands.
That adds a trans-atlantic element to the show as Nina and her brother Simon (Emmanuel Imani) have to navigate a hostile set of siblings and an angry
stepmother (Sarah Niles) from their dad’s second marriage. They enjoy the good life and had expected to coast with control of the firm.
“There’s a self-sufficiency, an independence that the British characters don’t have. And so they’re going to learn from each other. I think it’s more a seesaw of the different experiences which mirror a lot of the experience I took back in my own life with my peers who move between the States and the U.K. and sometimes back to West Africa,” Ajayi says.
It was the portrayal of the African diaspora that attracted Ayorinde to the script, a way to celebrate some parts of the Black experience in different cultures. “What I love about it is it respects the differences that we have, but it also highlights the similarities of our experiences. And I just feel like that’s something that might bridge the gap.”
Ajayi has created messy but understandable roles. “I think it’s good to explore Black characters who are flawed,” she says. “Black characters get to be the cop or the robber, but they don’t have any of the variation in between.”
Ajayi grew up in London to a family of Nigerian immigrants and recalls her aunts loving frothy
nighttime soap operas like “Dallas” and “Dynasty.” “Riches” shows her keen ability to mix laughter and substance. “Nobody walks through their life saying, ‘I’m in a drama’ or ‘I’m in a comedy.’ You kind of have elements of both in every day,” she says.
“Riches” was dreamed up and written by Ajayi during the pandemic, a way for her to escape into a gorgeous world of couture, bottle service at exclusive clubs and sleek offices in gleaming skyscrapers. “There was a kind of wish fulfillment, absolutely,” she says, laughing.
“I definitely did start very much from character. I think with this show, what I want is to be relatable and hook-y for the audience,” she says. “You might not have that money, but you have siblings, you have stepmothers, you have mothers — you have relationships and the complexities of blended families.”
Ajayi says she has always been fascinated by family businesses, the way in which conflicts spill from the boardroom to the living room and vice versa. “Emotionally, the stakes are never higher when it’s about family. That was the really important thing for me to get across: Money can damage something so important as family.”