Mapping Black London with Film: Sancho, Blanke, and Legacy

Ignatius Sancho (Paterson Joseph) and John Blanke (Michael I. Ohajuru)

Renée Landell, who I first met through her work on the John Blanke Project, invited me to take part in an educational video. She’s the Project Manager for  Mapping Black London ( MBL) and leads its educational strand Multiracial Pasts, Equitable Futures. Her team is turning MBL research into curriculum materials for schools. The project itself is a digital initiative that recentres and recovers the presence of people of colour across London’s long history, pre-Windrush (Sancho, Mary Prince, and many others).

As part of a new six-week scheme of work for KS3 students, they’re producing a short introductory video to be shown in classrooms during the first week. The plan was for Paterson Joseph to play Ignatius Sancho and for me to play John Blanke.

Ignatius Sancho (Paterson Joseph) and John Blanke (Michael I. Ohajuru)

Paterson and I had already “worked together” before in a short ChatGPT-written piece, Ignatius Sancho and John Blanke: A Surprising Revelation – A Play in One Act. So I was looking forward to working with him again. But this time, things were on a very different scale.

Renée’s MBL video was another kettle of fish altogether—much higher production values and expectations. This time there was a full professional team: Matt Dutton on directing and videography, Linda Haysman on costume and set design, and a host of others. I quickly realised just how much time, effort, care, and professionalism can go into making even a three-minute video.

Ignatius Sancho (Paterson Joseph) and John Blanke (Michael I. Ohajuru) Costume & Setting Designer Linda Haysman

The play, Sancho Draws a Blanke, was written by Paterson. It imagines a meeting between Ignatius Sancho, the 18th-century writer and abolitionist, and John Blanke, the Black trumpeter at the Tudor court. The action takes place in Sancho’s Westminster shop on the eve of his death, when Blanke appears—seemingly from heaven—to herald him “shuffling off this mortal coil.” Together, they reflect on family, legacy, Shakespeare’s Black characters, and the long history of African people in Britain. Before Sancho departs, he asks to paint Blanke, noting how unlike his own fine portrait by Gainsborough, Blanke’s image in the Westminster Tournament Roll is little more than a 'smudge'. The play closes with Sancho beginning to paint his fellow African Briton anew.

Mark Dutton and Renée Landell

In the end, the video will last just three minutes, but filming took over four hours, with endless retakes—mainly thanks to my shaky memory and less-than-convincing delivery. Still, I learned a huge amount about acting, directing, producing, costume design, and staging.

Now the real work begins, as Matt and Renée shape all of that into the final product.