‘I’ve lived in lots of different parts of the UK, but Birmingham has just always felt like my home,’ says Amaka Okafor, who plays Shahara Hasan in Netflix’s new crime series, ‘Bodies’. Now residing in London, she still visits her hometown regularly and is even considering moving back for good. ‘London’s amazing, but it’s big enough for people to be quite segregated and stay within their communities, whereas Birmingham is very mixed.’ One of her favourite things about the city is – perhaps unsurprisingly – its people. ‘It’s full of independently minded people who set their own things up and trust that others will come, and people do,’ she says. ‘You don’t need to leave Birmingham to find culture. One of my favourite music festivals is the Moseley Jazz Festival: I go to every summer, it’s just such a vibe.’
Starring alongside Stephen Graham in ‘Bodies’ (‘He’s incredible!’), Okafor sees a lot of similarities between herself and her character: a headstrong police detective who is also a single mum. ‘She has a massive heart for outsiders and puts herself on the line when she probably shouldn’t,’ Okafor says. Here, she guides us around the UK’s second city.
Drink
‘My favourite place is Hockley Social Club. It’s in the Jewellery Quarter, surrounded by warehouses that are actually used for warehouses – not swanky warehouses that are now flats. It’s basically this really cool, old, social club: when you go in, there’s loads of different food places, as well as a bar and a record shop and live music a lot of nights of the week. I spent New Year’s there, last year.’
Eat
‘I grew up close to Dudley Road, a major road that goes through Birmingham where all of the Caribbean grocery shops and Asian shops are. If you want to buy Black food or Asian food, you go to Dudley Road to get your stuff. There’s also incredible Caribbean places to eat on that street – they look a bit shit out the front, but the food is really good.’
Do
‘There’s a place called Midlands Art Centre, in Cannon Hill Park, which is where I first started doing drama aged nine or ten. The woman who ran it was so scary, she expected a lot of us: if you weren’t on time, you got an absolute bollocking in front of everyone. But it definitely taught me discipline. They’ve got studio spaces, loads of art workshops and an independent cinema, too. It’s just always been a hub of creativity for the community.’
See
‘There’s miles and miles of canals in Birmingham and they’re beautiful, backed onto by really old factories. For most places in the city, you can just walk the canal from town and it will take you straight into the countryside.’
Amaka Okafor stars in ‘Bodies’, streaming on Netflix now.