''Sitting in Limbo'' is a 2020 British factual drama television film about the

Windrush scandal The Windrush scandal was a British political scandal that began in 2018 concerning people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and in at least 83 cases wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office. Many o ...

. The story focuses on the real-life experiences of a Jamaican-born British man, Anthony Bryan, one of the victims of the UK

Home Office hostile environment policy The UK Home Office hostile environment policy is a set of administrative and legislative measures designed to make staying in the United Kingdom as difficult as possible for people without leave to remain, in the hope that they may " voluntarily ...

on immigration. Bryan had lived in the UK for 50 years when his life was upended as a result of the Home Office mistakenly classifying him as an

illegal immigrant Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, wi ...

. ''Sitting in Limbo'' was written by Bryan's half-brother, novelist Stephen S. Thompson, and stars Patrick Robinson, Nadine Marshall, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Jay Simpson and

Sarah Woodward Sarah Woodward (born 3 April 1963) is a British actress who won an Olivier Award in 1998 for ''Tom & Clem'' and was Tony nominated in 2000 for '' The Real Thing''. Sarah is the daughter of actor Edward Woodward and his first wife, actress Ven ...

. The film was broadcast on 8 June 2020 on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

Jimmy Cliff James Chambers, Jamaican Order of Merit, OM (born 30 July 1944), known professionally as Jimmy Cliff, is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hol ...

's song "Sitting in Limbo", from his 1971 album ''

Another Cycle ''Another Cycle'' is an album by Jimmy Cliff, released in 1971. Production The album was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, in Alabama. "Sitting in Limbo" was used on the following year's '' The Harder They Come''. Although recorded in the ...

'', played over the

closing credits Closing credits, aka end credits or end titles, are a list of the cast and crew of a particular motion picture, television show, or video game. While opening credits appear at the beginning of a work, closing credits appear close to or at th ...

. , the film holds approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on reviews with an average rating of . The programme won the

British Academy Television Award for Best Single Drama The British Academy Television Award for Best Single Drama is one of the major categories of the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), the primary awards ceremony of the British television industry. According to the BAFTA website, the categor ...

at the

2021 British Academy Television Awards The 2021 British Academy Television Awards were held on 6 June 2021, to recognise the excellence in British television of 2020. The nominees were announced along with the nominees for the 2021 British Academy Television Craft Awards on 28 April 20 ...

References

External links

Sitting in Limbo
an
Sitting in Limbo Pre-Watershed Version
at BBC iPlayer
'They don't tell you why': threatened with removal after 52 years in the UK
article in ''The Guardian'' by

Amelia Gentleman Amelia Sophie Gentleman (born 1972) is a British journalist. She is a reporter for ''The Guardian'', and won the Paul Foot Award in 2018 for reporting the Windrush scandal. Early life and education Born in London in 1972, Gentleman is the da ...

* 2020 drama films 2020 films 2020 television films British films based on actual events British television films Films set in London Films shot in London Racism in the United Kingdom Windrush {{UK-tv-film-stub