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Riches is a new series on Prime Video that is streaming now and tells the story of the Richards family. The show might seem like a typical series about power in the family, but with the cast being mostly Black, Riches is something rarely seen on television. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Riches creator, writer and executive producer Abby Ajayi teases what viewers can expect from the new series.
“I hope they can expect and will get an entertaining time to have fun with these characters, grow to love these characters, and love to hate some of the characters,” Ajayi exclusively told PopCulture. “It is a family drama, it’s about a wealthy, black British family, but they’ve got the American siblings there. So this conflict, this chaos, this drama, there is some more substantive issues explored about black ambition, colorism in the community. But ultimately I hope they go on a journey with these characters and really see them emotionally come to terms with the death of their father, while also shedding a light on an element of black British life that I have not seen on screen before.”
In Riches, the Richards family takes a big hit when the patriarch, Stephen Richards (Hugh Quarshie) dies suddenly. He is the owner of the successful cosmetics company Flair and Glory, and the entire Richards family fights to gain control of the empire which leads to the children from Stephen’s two marriages colliding.
“I’ve always been really interested in family business shows, whether you’re talking about Dynasty or Six Feet Under, because it’s such a really… Because I love family dramas, but sometimes dramatically you need more of an engine,” Ajayi explained. “And I think the ways in which when you put money and blood together it just causes explosions, it gives us those dramatic tensions. And so I think it was more being able to tell a grounded story about these siblings and about what they’re going to do with this inheritance.”
The cast of Riches includes Deborah Ayorinde, Adeyinka Akinrinade, Ola Orebiyi, Nneka Okoye, Emmanuel Imani and Emmy nominee Sarah Niles who is known for her work on Ted Lasso. Ajayi said she enjoyed working with the cast “because I wrote some things on the page and I was very clear about the characters and they really lived in my imagination. And what’s been magical is these actors came on board and they took ownership of them, they really loved their characters. The cast bonded incredibly well.”
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