Unseen Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 – Hope for Hire

  Chapter 2 – Far Right or Wrong?

  Chapter 3 – The Enemy in the Mirror

  Chapter 4 – A Slum for Some

  Chapter 5 – No Love Legislation

  Chapter 6 – Knives and Young Lives

  Chapter 7 – Minors and Modelling

  Chapter 8 – Makings of a Man

  Chapter 9 – Close to Home

  Chapter 10 – Race Riots and Me

  Chapter 11 – South Side

  Index

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  From Grange Hill to Top of the Pops, Reggie Yates has been on camera nearly all of his life, but it’s as a documentary filmmaker – and a pretty fearless one at that – where he has truly been making his mark, investigating everything from gun crime in Chicago, to life as a refugee in Iraq.

  In his first book, Unseen, Reggie takes us behind the scenes on his journey from TV host to documentary storyteller. Using some of the key moments and extreme circumstances he has found himself in, Reggie examines what he has learned about the world, and himself as a person.

  Beginning as a brief exploration of Reggie’s relationship with the camera and life growing up on screen, Unseen explores the journey Reggie has taken in the documentary world. Initially resistant to documentary making, Reggie was convinced his point of view as a young black working class man with a history in music, children’s TV and entertainment would not make his films remotely credible. Through conflict and challenges on screen, the understanding gained from the very thing once seen as a weakness would become his strength on camera, as the eye of the everyman and voice of the audience. Unseen unpicks the stories behind the fascinating characters and situations Reggie encounters across a series of films, as well as chronicling the personal growth through each testing shoot for Yates himself.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Reggie Yates is an actor, television presenter and documentary maker, best known for his role as Leo Jones in Doctor Who, and for his work at the BBC in radio and television, presenting various shows for BBC Radio 1 as well as hosting The Voice and Release the Hounds.

  Reggie presents the award-winning documentary series, Extreme UK and The Insider for BBC Three. Extreme UK won Reggie an RTS Award for ‘Best Presenter’, as well as ‘Best Factual Programme’ at Edinburgh TV Festival. In 2014, Reggie wrote and directed the comedy short film, Date Night, which won ‘Best UK Short Film’ at the London Independent Film Festival and has recently completed his latest short film Shelter, presented by BBC Films.

  For Anna Scher.

  Thank you

  INTRODUCTION

  8am, summer 1992. The dull hum of cheap strip lights owning the silence struck fear into my pounding nine-year-old heart. An offensively floral-scented make-up artist edged closer. Between her colossal barnet and cherry red lipstick peeped a pair of piercing blue eyes that still haunt me to this day. Her brush powdered with brown make-up (a whole two shades too dark) finally connected with my face. Suddenly and officially, there was no turning back.

  This was it. The minute Kieran Buckley and Aaron Burn found out, I wouldn’t be able to show my face on the football pitch ever again. The minute Uncle George, who took huge pleasure in referring to me as a thesssspian, found out, I’d never live it down. For the first time in my life, I was wearing make-up. I was officially a working actor.

  When you think child actor, the first thing that comes to mind is a pre-pubescent millionaire divorcing their parents before riding the cocaine train to bankruptcy. For me, being a child actor was a social education. The people and challenges I experienced have helped to shape my career and to make me the man I am today.

  Growing up in north London, I was consistently faced with the realities of class and wealth. Sandwiched between tourist-heavy, upwardly mobile Camden and rough-around-the-edges Hackney, Islington was the London borough I called home.

  My mother always joked about the people living behind the huge panelled doors of perfect million-pound properties on our road. She’d laugh because they had no choice but to walk past our dirty council estate. Weirdly, for some reason I was never embarrassed or ashamed by the block.

  As young as five while walking to school I remember being fascinated by the people and stories that existed as close as a few hundred yards from my own front door. Even at that age I was aware that, though they lived close by, they existed in an entirely different world.

  Different is good and authenticity is invaluable

  After escaping the unavoidable cloud of floral perfume during my first make-up chair experience, I found myself in the costume truck staring in awe at established cast members who were floating in and out, howling with laughter while throwing around dirty West Indian jokes. This was my bizarre but brilliant introduction to the world of TV.

  I was to be sharing screen time with fictional characters my family had loved from the minute they burst onto British TV. My first gig was to play a tiny role on Channel 4’s longest-running sitcom at the time, Desmond’s.

  Desmond’s was special. A sitcom about a black family who ran a successful business in Peckham, south-east London began its seventy-one-episode run in 1989. It wasn’t just special for me as a new actor and fan of the show; it was unique in TV full stop. The fact the show even existed was beyond a triumph, it was a miracle. This was the only long-running series on prime-time British TV with a cast made up almost exclusively of West Indian and African performers. The show was inclusive and at its core about family; more importantly, it was positive.

  Any feelings of intimidation or nerves were quashed as I realised I was surrounded by men and women who looked and sounded like my family and the people I grew up around. Who they were off camera served as a huge driver for their on-screen personas, and what made them unique as people bolstered the show with a legitimacy and point of difference that was not only refreshing, but authentic.

  Now at this point, we’re talking about me being a natty-haired, big-toothed, newbie child actor who wasn’t even in double figures yet. My mother had handcrafted my haircut with a pair of safety scissors complete with orange handles, and I’d probably eaten my body weight in make-up truck sherbet lemons. Age, bad haircut and sugar high aside, I quickly learned a valuable lesson.

  Desmond’s resonated with all audiences not just because it was entertaining, but also because it was different. The black south-east London take on family life was a huge hit with mainstream audiences as it offered a voice unheard on a platform of that scale. From the calypso theme tune to the West Indian banter, and not forgetting those old African sayings, new eyes and ears were won over as the show delivered an exciting and fresh world for the majority.

  Desmond’s was different and, for my perceptive younger self, the penny dropped. Different is good and authenticity is invaluable.

  Television was never something I’d pined over; in fact performing wasn’t something I’d realised I was drawn to. Keeping myself entertained was always the motivation for my moments of showing off for friends, mum or anyone that would pay attention. If it wasn’t me filling the silence, it was music or TV and when it wasn’t my turn to talk I listened. Closely.

  Obsessing over the words used by Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest saw pre-teen me desperately trying to understand why Bonita had an apple bum. I spent hours reciting raps I was far too young to understand, but listening to what my mother and her friends spoke about fascinated me on a whole other level.

  Even as a child there was always something I found incredibly captivating about the fa
ntastic hidden within the familiar. From the double meanings hurled bar after bar in the raps I immersed myself in, to eavesdropping on adult conversations heard through doors and walls, people and their truest experiences were the stories I gravitated toward.

  The journey from actor to presenter in my teens saw the demands on me change radically. I’d learned early on that the best and most successful actors lose themselves within a character; they become someone else, forgoing the foundations of their own uniqueness and embodying whatever role they’ve been chosen to play. As a presenter, I was given direction and advice that was quite literally the polar opposite.

  In 2012, I was fortunate enough to front my own radio documentary for BBC Radio 5 Live called Is Mum Enough? about growing up with a single parent. I spoke to friends, family and my role models, talking intimately about key moments in my life. It became a deeply personal and edifying experience, even though I had to venture into testing territory. The subject matter meant that I had to investigate my own role models, and in one part of the documentary I was on mic with a man I describe as my TV dad, Billy Macqueen.

  I began working with Billy when I was twelve, during his time as an exec at Disney, and my first long-running presenting role was as one of a gang of child presenters fronting The Disney Club for ITV. It wasn’t even close to its American equivalent, The Mickey Mouse Club, where hosts would sing and dance and go on to huge careers in music and film, including alumni Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling and Britney Spears. Sadly, we couldn’t dance and were brilliantly British in our hooligan-like singing, so we stuck to just being kids on screen. Somehow, it worked. Billy wasn’t on set but occasionally came into the office or studio bringing his own brand of profanity and chaos, which I was instantly drawn to. Our relationship grew closer over the years as we worked together on several other projects, most notably the Sunday morning children’s entertainment series for the BBC called Smile.

  You often see it written in leadership or self-help books that the culture of any company is built from the top down, and Billy’s brand of leadership was and still is incredible. Alongside long-term business partner Maddy Darrell – who directed and produced The Disney Club and now runs an award-winning production company with Billy – they created the type of environment that encouraged a style of presentation that played a huge role in my eventual fronting of documentaries.

  TV was a different place at the time. There was a party for every occasion and a seemingly endless budget for cabs, treats, gifts and whatever we the cast wanted. In hindsight, I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like working with a pack of pre-teen children’s TV presenters. All horny, emotional, spotty and awkward, we must have been a nightmare. Between dousing myself with Lynx Africa deodorant and bathing in Oxy Clean spot cream, I somehow learned my lines and got the job done. To this day I’m not sure how, but I remember as clear as my now spot-free face the advice given by Billy.

  His delivery was refreshingly honest and unmistakable. It was a style best described as a relentless machine gun, peppering people with assertions presented as jokes. Unfortunately, they were the kind that cut dangerously close to the bone. ‘Be you,’ he’d say, quickly followed by, ‘We’re paying you to be you so don’t fuck it up.’

  Some of the folks in positions of power viewed us, the bright-eyed bushy-tailed newbies as a flock just waiting to be fleeced. Billy not only wanted us to win, but to do so being ourselves.

  As a teenage presenter there seemed to be a strange reaction to what I brought to the table. With years of experience as an actor, I could switch my delivery tonally without really trying and would always embellish on scripts desperately trying to put Billy’s advice into practice.

  However, outside of working with people like Billy, being me didn’t always go down so well. At the time, there was a desire by the industry for the crop of young BBC faces in which I now found myself a permanent fixture, to be … well, mayonnaise. Flavourless, colourless and devoid of any individuality. Even as a teenager, that made no sense to me.

  At the age of fifteen, I was fronting bits for the BBC as a presenter but also performing as a cast regular in long-running children’s drama Grange Hill and in Channel Five’s soap Family Affairs. Acting still felt fun, but with my beak well and truly wet as a presenter, the desire to find work that allowed the personal stamp encouraged by Billy outweighed the opportunities to do so.

  In any African home that enjoys television as a family, programme choice is usually placed firmly in the hands of the ranking family member. Growing up in a Ghanaian home right down to the doilies and fridge full of Tupperware, my stepfather reigned supreme over the remote control. That sought-after piece of kit invariably sat submissively on the arm of his favourite chair. For us kids, his dominance of the sole screen in the house usually worked against us, but occasionally he’d pick moments on the box that were brilliant.

  It was at this point in my teens that the presenters I looked at with admiration shifted. I was drawn to those that no longer felt like hosts, but far more like versions of their true self only without the profanity … in some cases.

  The unapologetically loud Chris Evans on Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush was the commander of every second committed to tape. Regardless of his shoulder-pad-heavy purple suits, somehow I felt that I knew who he was as a bloke. That connective sleight of hand was incredible to watch and inspiring.

  Terry Christian on The Word, Davina McCall on Streetmate and even Jonathan Ross’s late-night persona all shared elements of getting the job done in the most traditional way. What made them special to me was their ability to find a moment to inject that little twinkle making the mundane come alive. The one thing all of these fantastic presenters had in common wasn’t their likeable personalities or cheeky tone; who they were on screen was fundamentally bound by the style of TV they were fronting.

  It was at this stage that what I wanted to do hadn’t shown itself yet, but, in the shape of a terrible haircut and offensively loud bowling shirt, it was about to.

  A horrible Hawaiian shirt

  Entertainment has and will always be a slave to format, and so long as the idea is strong enough, every episode commissioned will feel and sometimes even look practically the same. This is never the case for documentary.

  On one of the many nights at the mercy of my stepfather’s questionable TV taste, as a family we found ourselves watching BBC2. After a fluffy iteration of the channel’s distinctive numbered logo did a few back flips, something I’d never seen on screen unfolded.

  A handheld camera followed a floppy, friendly young guy in a horrible Hawaiian shirt with huge glasses and bad hair. The sequence clearly wasn’t planned, polished or scripted but instantly we were silenced and glued to it. This was the first time I’d come into contact with the work of Louis Theroux and I was flummoxed. Up until this point, in my mind the man in front of camera was a certain type of alpha male, with a particular type of confidence and he never allowed anyone else to best him in a conversation.

  That wasn’t what was at work on any episode of Weird Weekends. This was a young, likeable guy who happily threw himself into every situation, playing the fool, appearing naïve or allowing someone to laugh at his expense. His manner on screen served his intention to cut through the bullshit, arriving at the candid core of a subject’s outlook or belief system. I was in full fan boy mode instantly.

  After just one episode of watching Theroux at work it became immediately clear to me that this was a lane I would kill to operate within. But given my fluffy list of credits and age this could never happen to someone like me. Right?

  I’m a person who has been described as many things. Namely: meddlesome, snoopy, interfering, prying and, occasionally, ‘fucking nosy’. I prefer ‘interested in people’. The reason I feel the films I make even begin to resonate or trigger healthy conversation at dinner tables and in living rooms across the country is because I don’t put myself on the outside of a situation when the camera is on, I t
hrow myself into it.

  In some films I’ve immersed myself in the subject matter by living as the people I intend to understand. Sometimes the way to the core of an issue has been by opening up and sharing my own story with the people I meet. Learning from getting it wrong and making sure I keep in mind what was done when it felt right, I’ve finally begun to understand that who I am makes my films what they are.

  As a black British man with a career spanning twenty-six years in the business, I can honestly say I’ve nearly walked away several times. As a minority in British TV you’re constantly made to feel odd in your outlook, because culturally you’re an abnormality, and by the numbers you’re an anomaly. Retaining a sense of self is sometimes tougher than the job itself. The feelings of not being understood or a desperation to be heard can breed resentment or, as in my case, a decline in self-belief.

  Growing up a stone’s throw from wealth but surrounded by poverty as an experience was mirrored later in my life, but in an entirely different way.

  In my early twenties I was working full time in TV and earning good money. For the first time I felt like the public knew my face. I had a popular show on national radio and was introducing the biggest international names weekly on the world’s longest-running music show, Top of the Pops.

  I owned two London properties and was calm in my financial position and comfortable in my career. Without realising, I was a world apart from the friends I’d grown up with. Suddenly, the owners of those million-pound properties were my neighbours.

  Conflicts of guilt, success and frustration started the rumblings of self-doubt. My progress may have been slowed as, finally, I was offered a role I never believed could come my way. Fronting a documentary was something I’d always wanted but up until now I’d been sure I was the last person an audience would take seriously leading any film of any weight or importance.

  By this point I’d established myself as a presenter in the worlds of music and entertainment. The profile I’d achieved with the audience that had grown up with me from children’s TV made me the perfect young face to join a group of established personalities in Kenya. The project was an immersive documentary for charitable organisation Comic Relief and I was besides myself to be asked.