Multi-talented musician’s focus on film

This is the soul singer whose melodious voice made him a hit on the 2010 edition of Jools Holland’s Annual Hootenanny whilst, at the same time, he was chilling audiences as a vicious teenage gangster opposite Michael Caine in Harry Brown.

As Plan B he’s also a hip-hop star. Now he’s a film director with iLL MANORS to his credit. He also wrote the screenplay. And the songs. And he’s only 28. It’s not hard to be impressed.

Benjamin Paul Ballance-Drew was born in Forest Gate, London. He still lives there. And iLL MANORS is drawn from experience, memory and the sort of life-changing event that can either propel someone along the right path – or the wrong one. Drew chose the former.

He’s been singing and writing songs since his teenage years. He can, as the saying goes, spit rhymes like the best American rappers. He also does a mean R&B set. He’s no stranger to folk clubs. Yet underneath it all are his London roots. Cue iLL MANORS.

The £100,000 project, made under Film London’s Microwave scheme, is an anthology movie focusing on several different characters and set in the capital. It stars Riz Ahmed of Four Lions fame and Shifty, another Microwave hit. The cast also includes Natalie (My Summer of Love) Press and newcomer Ed Skrein.

Drew’s route to the director’s chair meant losing out on the offer of a £1m budget from another backer. But he was convinced he was the only man for the job.

Ostensibly iLL MANORS is a remake of Drew’s earlier short film, Michelle. Parts of the narrative are provided by hip-hop songs. Drew’s description of his opus is: “dark and harrowing”.

“I wrote a film based on a true story that happened to me and my family,” recalls Drew. “I had some friends round my house and we went to the off licence. One of my friends took a BB gun out in the street, a plain-clothes police officer saw us and my house got raided by armed police. So I wrote a feature film about it. That was Trigger. The only reason it didn’t get made was because when they asked me who I wanted to direct it, I said myself.”

He wrote and later directed a short film, Michelle – which was to become iLL MANORS – using money from his recording advance for his debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words. Michelle morphed into a feature incorporating many of the earlier film’s characters.

“All the characters always spoke about coming in from somebody else’s house. There’s this guy called Terry and he speaks about a character called Kirby whose house has been raided.

“I just remember really wanting to know where Kirby’s house was and what it looked like inside, what Kirby looked like. And that’s what inspired the feature. It was almost like a television series; I just kept on writing.

“I actually wrote, I think, about 13 short stories. That went down to nine and became six when we actually started shooting. But it took me from early 2008 until last year to get this film made.”

Drew credits 29-year-old Riz Ahmed, like him an MC-turned-actor, as being the film’s secret weapon. Ahmed joined the cast, as Aaron, when first choice Adam Deacon (who played the role in Michelle) got stuck on another movie.

“It was the best piece of luck that ever happened to the film,” he reveals. “We all know Riz is a great actor but he’s also great for other actors. His approach to acting is so intelligent: the way he reads a script, the way he explains a script to the cast he’s working with.

“It was only through working with Riz that I feel Ed Skrein – he’s the skinhead who plays alongside Riz – has come into his own. It unearthed this movie star in him. I think I could have done that on my own but I don’t think I would have got such a great performance from him as he did.”

Drew will next be seen as Ray Winstone’s partner in Nick Love’s reboot of The Sweeney, in which suits, Ford Cortinas and revolvers have been replaced by leather jackets, flash motors and automatic weapons. Some might perceive it as a sell-out. Not Mr Drew.

“Doing exciting stuff like directing your own film and then starring in a film alongside Ray Winstone is a bonus: one will feed the other. If I’m gonna be working this hard – I’ve been working for the last few years non-stop solid, no personal life, no break – then I want what I’ve been working on to be as successful as possible and I will take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way.

“iLL MANORS wasn’t a vanity project. I didn’t make the film because I wanted a starring role. I’ve got a tiny little cameo somewhere in the film. I made the film because I wanted to tell a story and I wanted to prove that I could direct.

“The music was really hard. When I wrote the film certain parts were supposedly scripted and certain parts were always going to have music over them. So we’d turn up on set and I’d just tell the guys the situation and let them improv[ise]. The problem with that was when they improv[ised], magic would happen, which messed up the whole structure of the film for me because I then wanted to keep those scenes in.

“I didn’t want to write the song until I’d edited the scene but then I couldn’t really edit the scene until I had the music. It’s been a bit of a nightmare but we’re almost there.”

iLL MANORS (18) is on nationwide release from today.

ENDS