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 “Superbad meets 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.