Child actor in drama about Islamic State not allowed to watch final cut as it is too gruesome

Nana Agyeman-Bediako, 12, plays Isaac, a nine-year-old British boy taken to Raqqa by his radicalised mother

A child actor who features in a drama about the Islamic State has not been allowed to watch the final cut as it has been deemed too gruesome.

Nana Agyeman-Bediako, 12, plays Isaac, a nine-year-old British boy taken to Raqqa by his radicalised mother, in the new Channel 4 series.

The director, Bafta-winning Peter Kosminsky, said “all the tricks of the trade” were used to stop Nana witnessing any of the barbaric scenes.

Nana, from north London, was the youngest boy to play Simba in The Lion King in the West End and was told to act as if he was “seeing something really horrible” when his character saw human heads impaled on spikes across Raqqa.

“He hasn’t seen the show and I don’t think he will. His mother saw it and she took the view that he shouldn’t see it at this point,” Mr Kosminsky told the Times.

The show humanises Isis recruits and Mr Kosminsky conceded this could prove to be controversial.

He said film-makers owed it to the families of those killed in terrorist attacks in the West, to portray Isis recruits in a way he deems to be accurate.

“The challenge for us as a society is that they are not quite that. The common factor seems to be a shallowness of their connection with their faith,” Mr Kosminsky told the Times.

The State, a co-production with National Geographic, is based on research of British Isis recruits and will be shown on Channel 4 from 20 August.