Our Stories

My first dream job as a child was to be an actor; what I lacked in talent I made up for in enthusiasm. I even got some TV parts: I played a footballer on a Saturday morning sketch on the show ‘Going Live’. I got a part of a young prince in the play ‘Thyestes’ and was at the Royal Court Theatre at age 11 for a month. I really thought it was gonna happen.

I started getting put forwards for parts and the excitement of being on TV was outweighed by the crushing realisation of what was on offer. I could be a criminal, an idiot, an idiot criminal, the honest good hard working slave, the funny guy (reworked idiot) or the one with the temper.

These were not the stories I wanted to make. I wanted to make stories with innovators, heroes, philosophers, dreamers, resilient, loving, powerful, intelligent, warrior type men. I wanted to make stuff that showed the Moroccan entrepreneur on my estate with the scar down his face, who taught me to punch, would carry our mum’s shopping if her saw her over the road and would cuss me out if he saw me acting stupid. I wanted to see the Bangladeshi couple with the dad who ALWAYS asked me about my grades. I wanted to see the Irish, west African and Caribbean families who took turns to cook our family dinner every night for two weeks after our kitchen burnt down. I wanted to see stories that were like us.

I named my company ‪#‎StoriesLikeUs‬ for that reason. It may take us a while to get there but our original content will be stories about the under represented, the dream chasers and those who want to share a story that is more interesting then the ones currently on offer. Last week I agreed our first studio space and have a mentor/ advisor in @christianbanfield, who advised me on one of my biggest jobs to date.

We are going to vlog weekly from April as we move into our new space and record the journey of dream chasing. I believe in unity through our diversity. I believe we have more things in common then we have that separate us. I also believe the differences between us are not threats but invitations to understand insight, life and what it is to be human.

I believe in stories that are like us.