Image via Running Films
It’s not a shockingly original statement to make, but the internet really is revolutionising TV. Millennials don’t watch broadcast TV. They watch Netflix, or Youtube, or heaven forbid, even torrent stuff. But you know all that. What’s much more interesting are the millennials actually making their own TV. Kids like Joivan Wade, Dee Kaate and Percelle Ascott, who together created and started in the YouTube sensation Mandem on the Wall. Joivan and Percelle were up-and-coming actors, Dee a stand-up, and making the comedy show helped them take control of their own careers. It led to them appearing in E4’s South London teen show Youngers, and recently making a pilot for BBC Three. But more importantly they used Mandem of the Wall’s success to launch their own channel ‘The Wall of Comedy’, creating content for the young adult audiences that broadcast TV doesn’t seem to cater to right now.
And now they’re about to make their big screen debut in The Weekend, a British comedy where they play three kids who come across a big bag of cash, and decide to spend it as quickly and crazily as possible. It’s a not the most original idea — it’s kind of the same plot as Brewster’s Millions or Blank Check — but it’s a perfect premise for a comedy group making their first feature length film (they describe it as “Superbadmeets The Hangover, but with black guys”). I met up with Joivan and Percelle in Covent Garden. (Dee was meant to be their as well, but his train into Central was delayed, which is the most authentically South London reason to be late). Despite their young age — Joivan and Percelle are 23, Dee is 28 — they’ve been doing this for over five years and spoke eloquently and wisely about the industry. They namecheck Richard Branson as much as they do Richard Pryor.
The group first met “five or six years ago”, when they all performed at a mutual friend’s comedy show. Percelle and Joivan went to the prestigious BRIT School together (they’ve both got a decent amount TV credits separately — Percelle was in the CBBC fantasy show Wizards & Aliens, and Joivan is currently in Eastenders), but this was their first shot at making people laugh. “We'd never done comedy before,” Pecelle tells me. “And as we performed our sketch show, Dee watched it. We saw him, we thought it was funny. Literally after the show we just exchanged numbers and lets see what we can do.”
A week later, they created the first eight-minute Mandem On The Wall episode, with them starring as three London boys, hanging out on the road, chatting shit and chirpsing girls. Joivan continues, “The whole idea was to get it to TV. After the forth episode there were millions of hits, and we were approached by production company Big Talk, who did Youngers. We did season one of Youngers, and they said to us we were going to pitch for our own TV show. That didn't happen because Youngers season 2 struggled to get commissioned. We realised we weren't going to get our own TV show, and by that point we'd kind of left all of our online audience, which was a bit of a shame. We then basically wanted to create other shows, other ideas, but we couldn't put them on the Mandem platform, because that was just a show, not a network. So we thought, ‘Lets forget about waiting for TV networks to commission us, lets just commission ourselves.’”
And so The Wall of Comedy Youtube channel was born. They looked to the influential British music Youtube channels and online platforms like SB.TV, Link Up and GRM Daily, who’s grassroots work recording and uploading young MCs freestyles helped build grime into the current sound of the UK that it is today. Percelle: “Those platforms are obviously more focused towards music. We're really passionate about comedy. We see ourselves as like Russell Simmons or the Wayans Brothers in America, where we want to have innovation in what we're doing. So we created a platform for comedians, and also a home for our content.” And it worked. Six months after rebranding their social media, they went from 300,000 likes on Facebook to a million and a half, and The Wall of Comedy now hosts content from a range of young British acts.
When Twitter announced its intention to close down Vine last month, a lot was written about how the six-second video platform allowed a lot of young African-American voices to get exposure that they couldn’t get in the mainstream, because the barriers to entry were so low. While Mandem haven’t really used Vine much themselves, they have really been doing the same thing for young, urban, mostly black teenagers who aren’t been shown on TV (or at least not in a positive light). Joivan: “The internet has been the be-all and end-all, to be completely frank. If you can do millions of views online, you go to TV companies {and show them there’s an audience}. Imagine if you couldn't prove that? And if they still say no, the internet also allows you to bypass that and get your work out there, and allow those who do have a vision and belief to see it to champion you and help you.”
Percelle continues, talking about how they are building on previous generations of black British comedy. “All those people who set a pathway for us like Slim, and Kojo {who wrote The Weekend}, they had to do it with what they had at that time. So now it’s like that baton has been passed onto us, to use the internet and do what we gotta do.” It particularly strikes a cord when they bring up Slim and Kojo. As a white kid growing up in London, I’d see bill posters (usually next to ones advertising for a big garage night or the next Tyson fight, to paraphrase Mike Skinner) for veteran black UK stand ups like those two, and even Richard Blackwood, who were clearly a big deal, selling out venues like the Hackney Empire. But I had no idea who they were, because they weren’t on TV or anything. But now, Mandem on the Wall is on Youtube for everyone to see. And it doesn’t matter what race or culture you’re from, their stuff is funny. They’re building a fanbase that smashes through media’s preconceived ideas of audience segregation.
Percelle calls it “The Stormzy Effect”, following how the grime MC has become one of the most popular artists in the country doing everything independently, distributing his music himself online — and appealed to kids from all different backgrounds at the same time. And if he can do it without a record label, do they really need a TV network? Joivan: “To be honest, there is no appeal in TV, other than the fact you can fund your project. The model that we’ve adapted is going to brands, and trying to get them to sponsor our content for online shows. Really and truly, everyone just wants to be paid for what they’ve done, so they can continue to do it, and see your work in the highest production quality. TV offers that.They way the online world is moving, it’s not about the platform that it’s on, it’s the quality of the work.”
Do they thing British TV failing the current generation? Jovian: “I don’t think TV is catering for kids today. If you look at the statistics, I genuinely understand why when we go to a production company or a broadcaster, and they say our show is niche and it’s not going to reach a wide enough audience. The bottom line is the majority TV audience is aged 40 to 65. And the shows which we’re creating are not for that audience. That’s why you get your audience going online. That’s why BBC Three and other networks have gone online, because they have to chase that audience.”
Percelle pipes up and slightly disagrees though. “However I would say if you create good content, and you put that anywhere, people will go to it. Even though there’s the 40 to 65 year olds who watch TV, I think if you create a great show and put it on BBC One, our demographic will go and watch if.” I’ve actually got a debate going between the two of them now. Jovian hits back: “But the fact that they’re not creating these TV shows means that the audience are not going to be there, which is why we have to go online. Because in order to create that audience you have to create the show. And they’re not willing to create the show. It’s forcing us to come up with an alternative and put it online.”
Mandem have found that audience, and they understand the responsibility of it. They want to set a good example — Percelle is quick to point out the lack of swearing in their videos. They also say that a big appeal of doing The Weekend was that it was a Superbad-style comedy with regular black kids, without it instantly being about knife-crime or things like that. Percelle: “Before this year, there was probably a good six, seven year gap since we last saw characters like this on the big screen. I think for me and the boys, we do stuff because we have a role to play, in setting an example. I think I got my education as a young boy from things I saw on TV. We all know we're conditioned from music and television, so for us we take great privilege in being role models, and having an impressionable audience its important for us to make sure what we're doing is in line with them.” Jovian continues: “Every urban film which has been released and has been a success has always had a negative connotation. Kidulthood, Adulthood, Shank, The Intent. Every urban film depicts us in a specific light. No, there is black people and youth culture where we don't go around shooting and stabbing each other, and people should see that.”
Finally, I ask them what’s their aims for the future? Percelle: “Our baby right now is The Wall of Comedy, in terms of that being out platform. Our vision is for it to be a comedy Netflix. We want to build our online TV network, and commission shows, and take risks on talent — all these things that the broadcasters cannot do. We don’t have that much restraint. I’d like to see us grow that and one day even become a distribution company for films. But for me and the boys, we’re just going to keep creating.” And Joivan? “We want to establish ourselves as a household name, that you can trust. That will just come through constant hard work, and trial and error.”
THE WEEKEND is in cinemas from Friday 2nd December. It’s being self-distributed through the OurScreen platform, so you need to pre-order tickets only from here. It is also available on DVD and digital download from December 16.
