Idris Elba’s new Netflix comedy ‘Turn up Charlie’ seems less a television show than a checklist of things Idris Elba wanted to do on camera. In the series, which Elba co-created with Gary Reich, he plays Charlie, a ’90s one-hit wonder who these days DJs at weddings while lying to his parents in Nigeria that he’s still a huge success. His childhood best mate David is now a famous actor with an equally famous DJ wife, Sara and through a series of wacky hijinks, Charlie winds up playing nanny to their lonely, disruptive daughter Gabby. The premise allows Elba – who has long moonlit as a DJ, often billed as DJ Big Driis – to play a man who can spin records and get a party going. It lets him do light comedy, when he’s primarily known for intense characters like The Wire’s Stringer Bell and Luther from the BBC show of the same name. Published in Daily Times, March 19th 2019.