Early on, filmmaking was not something Abby Ajayi was thinking of as her career path. She started out as a Law student at Oxford, which turned to provide her with indispensable skills for the screenwriting craft later on. In addition to pursing a law degree, Ajayi loved English Literature at school and knew that writing or journalism was something she ultimately wanted to do.
Career[]
After graduation, Ajayi worked in development for a small production company where she utilized her legal, creative and script reading skills. She followed this with a job in drama development at the BBC in the Children’s Drama department. Ajayi had stayed at the BBC for three years working as a script editor across dramas in development and production. At the BBC, Ajayi also met people with whom she would later collaborate when she started writing. Although things now seem to have turned out seamlessly for her, Ajayi says that it was very difficult at the time working out how to get to where she wanted to be. She got her first paid commission on the TV series The Story of Tracy Beaker and signed with an agent. Since then, Ajayi has been writing for long-running BBC drama series, including East Enders, Casualty and Doctors. Ajayi wrote the original comedy-drama script, The Future WAGs of Great Britain, which was broadcast as part of Channel 4’s Coming Up Scheme. The short film, written by Ajayi and directed by Destiny Ekaragha, follows two British-Nigerian girls growing up in Tottenham, North London; it went on to play at several film festivals. At the same time, Ajayi wrote a feature-length TV movie Three Wise Women for the Hallmark channel in the US. Soon afterwards, Ajayi was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and went to the New York Film Academy for a year.[1]