Reg­gie Yates: ​‘We sel­dom see Black British com­ing-of-age stories’

A near-ubiq­ui­tous pres­ence on British TV has final­ly spilled over to the big screen for Reg­gie Yates, who debuts as writer and direc­tor with the frisky, fun-lov­ing com­e­dy, Pirates, about three Lon­don pals search­ing for the ulti­mate Y2K high.

LWLies: What drove you to make a fea­ture film and how was the process dif­fer­ent for the things you’ve made for TV?

Yates: I’ve been in film and TV for over 30 years now and I’ve always want­ed to direct. For the longest time, I just nev­er real­ly thought that the sto­ries I want­ed to tell had any val­ue. I was con­stant­ly being told that they wouldn’t find an audi­ence. Thank­ful­ly, I start­ed to have some lev­el of self-belief and encour­age­ment about 15 years ago and, through that, I start­ed mak­ing short films. As my short films got big­ger and as I received more advice and guid­ance, I got to the point of mak­ing this feature.

When I was a kid I start­ed out at a local dra­ma group called Anna Sch­er The­atre. They encour­aged us to write plays and put them on and direct our oth­er class­mates as actors, and I start­ed doing that from about the age of 11 so I’ve always been involved in it, I just nev­er real­ly recog­nised the pow­er that I had in the sto­ries that I want­ed to tell.

A lot of the film is inspired by your youth. Is there a main per­son­al aspect that you drew on in order to con­struct the narrative?

More than any­thing, the friend­ship. That friend­ship between me and my boys as a teenag­er was real­ly impor­tant. I think every­body knows how impor­tant, spe­cial and unique those teenage friend­ships are. Whether they last a life­time or not, you’re super mal­leable in your teens, and that broth­er­hood, or sis­ter­hood, or what­ev­er it is that you expe­ri­ence between your group of friends, can help define that moment. It def­i­nite­ly did for me. We’ve also seen a mil­lion and one com­ing-of-age sto­ries from an Amer­i­can per­spec­tive, but we very sel­dom see it from the British per­spec­tive, let alone the Black British per­spec­tive. One of the things that I’m incred­i­bly proud of about this film is that it speaks to a ver­sion of Black British youth that we don’t get to see very often, and most impor­tant­ly the joy of that.

What is your rela­tion­ship to UK Garage, to which this film is some­thing of an homage? 

I grew up in North Lon­don, and I moved to South Lon­don when I was 14. When I was 16 or 17 I man­aged to get myself on Freek FM, which was my favourite radio sta­tion. Me and my lit­tle crew made a demo, and we got our­selves on this pirate radio sta­tion, and we were on the same sta­tions as our heroes. Dreem Teem came from Freek, EZ came from Freek, Heart­less Crew came from Freek. These were all peo­ple that we looked up to and want­ed to be like, so it was a mas­sive moment for me. I’ve still got a mas­sive col­lec­tion of tapes that I record­ed from all of these North Lon­don radio sta­tions. When I moved to South Lon­don, sud­den­ly I was able to pick up a whole new wave of sta­tions and DJs and MCs like Delight FM and So Sol­id Crew.

There was a huge car cul­ture among young peo­ple in the ​’90s and music went hand in hand with mix­tapes being passed around.

For sure, that’s why the car is such a huge part of the movie. It’s almost as if the car, the ​‘Cus­tard Cream’, is part of the gang. I think for any­body that grew up in a big city with not many places to go, you’ll know the impor­tance of that first friend who gets their license I’ve described it as a lit­tle club­house on wheels. Those jour­neys in the lit­tle Peu­geot that me and my boys used to take, that was huge for us.

Were Twice as Nice and Club Colos­se­um sig­nif­i­cant land­marks of your youth as well? 

Absolute­ly! All of these clubs that are in the film are real places that mas­sive­ly informed my teens. Ezekiel’s is in there too, a club in Peck­ham that we used to go to when we were teenagers. I think it’s a Cos­ta Cof­fee now… When I moved to Lewisham up the road from Peck­ham, sud­den­ly there were all these new clubs that were just real­ly excit­ing. Choice FM became a big­ger deal because I was on their patch. It’s crazy to think that such a huge moment in Lon­don club cul­ture is now a block of flats. I’m sure nobody in those build­ings knows what that meant to Vaux­hall and how many amaz­ing things came from what was essen­tial­ly a busi­ness club turned into a nightclub.

Pirates is released 26 Novem­ber. Read the LWLies Rec­om­mends review.