David Lammy Tells Grazia: Top Boy Is Needed Now More Than Ever

Acclaimed gang drama Top Boy arrived on Netflix last week, returning to our screens after a six-year break. The BAFTA-winning show now has Drake on-board as executive producer – he helped revive it despite Channel 4 cancelling it at the end of series two. However, anyone expecting Hollywood glitter will be disappointed. Set on the fictional Summerhouse estate in Hackney, the show returns with Ashley Walters starring as dealer Dushane, now keen to reclaim his rank at the top of the East London drug market after exile.

Walters has first-hand knowledge of the world of danger and deprivation depicted; he was jailed briefly in 2002 for possessing a loaded firearm, and grew up on the same troubled Peckham estate on which 10-year- old Damilola Taylor was murdered in 2000. Back in 2008, Walters met Damilola’s father, Richard Taylor, and tried to explain why young people from different postcodes kept killing each other. It might seem jarring, then, that he would go on to play a drug dealer. In fact, Walters has been accused of feeding the very narrative he seems eager to challenge. But as a London MP, I believe the show is needed now more than ever.

There were 40,147 recorded offences involving knives in the year ending March 2018, a 16% increase on the previous year and the highest number since 2011. Of these, 285 were knife killings, with one in four victims being men aged 18 to 24. In London alone, there were 132 homicides, 57% of which were stabbings. This year, we barely got to May by the time we had 100 fatal stabbings in the UK.

Yet shocking though they are, the numbers only go so far in illuminating what is happening. Top Boy offers a raw depiction of what life can be like for young men in London. Drama, by definition, must stretch rather than simply transcribe reality. Yet the most impressive thing about the show is its authentic representation of inner-city life.

Having spent two years interviewing gang members before he filmed the show, writer Ronan Bennett grounds the plot in lived experiences, many of which are pretty bleak. The show is visual proof of how gentrification can lead to segregation, pushing those already suffering from the housing crisis further down the ladder. Stop-and-search, poverty, deportation threats, mental illness, overcrowding, benefit sanctions, vandalism: these are all inspiration for the drama, which seeks to increase our understanding, rather than harshen our judgement, of gang culture.

As Bennett says, ‘Gang life can be bluntly seductive for children in need of self-esteem.’ That’s not glamorisation. That’s reality. The truth is, we cannot explain criminal behaviour solely in terms of environmental pressures, nor solely in terms of freely made choices. It’s more complicated than that. Joining a gang isn’t the default position for those who are born poor; instead, it’s often a genuine ambition in itself. That’s because it’s often the only feasible means of living any kind of worthwhile life at all.

When young adults grow up in marginalised communities, they will take whatever opportunities they can. Ambition is exploited as adults recklessly encourage younger people to implicate themselves in criminal behaviour. I’ve witnessed my fair share of policy-makers shying away from the brutal reality of knife crime. It’s much easier to fall back on lazy narratives.

Top Boy is brutally honest, yet honestly empowering. That’s because it gives people a platform to tell their story, in the hope that, for others, the story can be written differently.

Top Boy is now available on Netflix.

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