WITH a drug-dealer dad and a past as a knife-wielding gangster, Darren Harriott could have ended up in prison – but instead he’s having the last laugh.
He credits comedy with saving him from a life of crime and now he will be one of the celebrities competing in TV’s Dancing On Ice.
To achieve his dreams, he once worked as a bouncer to pay the bills — including at West London’s Hammersmith Apollo, where he would later return as a headliner.
Since then he has appeared on numerous TV shows, including Guessable, Outsiders and Don’t Hate The Playerz — but now he’s training with American pro skater partner Tippy Packard, 27, and laughs at the thought of his former gang members watching him twirling around “in a sparkly outfit”.
Darren said: “Stand-up saved me because I was completely lost.”
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In a candid interview with The Sun, the 34-year-old told about his tough upbringing in Oldbury, near Birmingham, losing his jailbird dad to suicide when he was 11 and going off the rails as a poverty-stricken teenager.
And the Brummie funnyman, who will be taking to the ice in custom-made size 14 skates, says he feels lucky he was able to stop going down a very dark path.
Strange call
He said: “At that time, when I was 14 or 15, I felt like I had nothing to lose. I could easily have stabbed someone over absolutely nothing.
“Every day, especially now that I live in London, I read the papers and see young teenage kids that are dying in stabbings.
“It’s horrific, because I remember what it was like at that age.
“When you take tough upbringings or home lives and poverty and add teenage boys’ egos, beefs and fights start over nothing.
“Factor in kids with knives, the consequences can be devastating.”
Throughout Darren’s early childhood his dad, Patrick, was in and out of jail and made only rare visits to see his mum Paulette and the kids.
Darren says: “He was a drug dealer, an addict and a proud Rastafarian with dreadlocks down his back, immaculate silk shirts and flashy convertible cars.
“The few times I saw him he had tons of cash in his pockets.
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“If my dad was a smart drug dealer, he probably wouldn’t have been in prison so much but he was very obvious.
“If you’d asked my dad what he did, he would have told you he was a carpenter.
“You’re not a carpenter driving a convertible Saab in 1995.”
At Christmas 1999, when Darren was 11, he was at his grandmother’s house when he got a strange call from his dad.
He recalled: “He started saying things like, ‘Look after your mom, look after your brother. Work hard, make sure you study’.
“I didn’t think about it at the time but on reflection there was a lot of finality in what he was saying.”
Three months later, in March 2000, another call revealed Patrick had taken his own life in his prison cell.
Darren added: “I was so sad for my mum because she had two boys of 11 and 13 to raise on her own and she was only 33, younger than I am now.
“She’s the complete opposite of my dad, hard working, never done drugs in her life, plays by the rules and she worked as a cleaner.”
Darren says he felt “completely lost”, then at secondary school he bonded with a group of classmates who all also had “dad issues”.
Modelling themselves on UK garage and hip-hop collective So Solid Crew, they formed a grime music group called Terror Klan Killerz.
While Oldbury, where Darren lived, was relatively untouched by gang crime, his friends lived in suburbs of Birmingham where warring factions, including the infamous rivals the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew, fought vicious territorial battles.
To Darren and his mates, the top gangsters were heroes.
Darren said: “My friend’s mum was dating a gang member who was so well known in Birmingham, he was like a film star.
“I was a poor kid with the heel coming off his shoes and I’m looking at this guy’s snappy clothes, gold chain, designer trainers and he’s got everything I want. I wanted to be him.
I was so sad for Mum when Dad died. She had two boys of 11 and 13 to raise. She’s the complete opposite of him – hard-working, never done drugs and plays by the rules
“But in 2003, on New Year’s Eve, Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare were killed in a drive-by shooting and it was horrific.
“He was one of the four men involved and that was shocking.”
As time went on, more people from other schools joined Darren’s gang and suddenly his pals were getting into the gang culture more seriously.
He recalled: “They were carrying knives so that meant I had to get a knife.
“I didn’t have any beef with anyone like that but these are my boys, so we look after each other. That was the mentality.
“I knew carrying a knife was bad but I was so lost, and I never felt comfortable anywhere until I found these guys.”
Being slightly removed from the crime-ridden areas where his friends lived meant Darren kept out of trouble.
He said: “Sometimes friends would say, ‘I pulled a knife on so and so’ and some of the gang would go out at night and rob people, stealing bikes at knifepoint.
“I’ve always felt fortunate that I never used a knife, because if someone had said something about my mum, called me fat — because I was a fat kid — or started a fight with me, I would have pulled out a knife which is a horrendous thought.”
With violence rife in Birmingham, there were near misses.
Darren said: “One time, a friend and I went to buy ice creams and as we walked out some guys got off bikes and pulled out knives. One of them had a zombie knife.
“We didn’t know them, but apparently one of us looked like someone who hurt somebody’s cousin.
“One of them suddenly grabs a brick and hits my friend in the face, then they get on the bikes and cycle off.
“I had to drag my friend home, with his white T-shirt covered in blood. The next day at school we all started carrying weapons again.”
While Darren was already uneasy about the escalating violence, it was his own gang turning on him, on New Year’s Eve 2004, which finally made him walk away.
He said: “We had an argument. I can’t remember what it was about but it was something petty and they beat me up, knocked me unconscious and put me in hospital.
The gang attack did me a favour because we might still be hanging out. Some have been in prison, some did drugs, which I never did. I hope they’re OK. We were good kids basically
“I’m lucky I wasn’t stabbed because they all had weapons. Instead they decided to kick me on the floor.
“I was embarrassed and ashamed, because when you’re in the gang you have an ego, but also really sad that I’d lost these people who were like my brothers.
“It was horrible spending New Year’s Eve in a hospital bed but it does really change you for the following year.
“My New Year’s resolution? Don’t be here again next year.”
Although his family wanted him to report the gang to the police, he refused, for fear of being branded a snitch.
But the beating proved a turning point and, after leaving school and going to college for a “fresh start”, Darren turned to comedy to help him with his spiralling mental health problems.
He explained: “I was really depressed.
“I needed something to become obsessed with and take my mind off things and then I found comedy after going to an open mic night.
“I did my first gig at 18 and I still had that element of the ghetto kid, with a lot of anger.
“It’s like chasing that high, constantly trying to get that laugh and it helped me a lot.”
Darren travelled to comedy gigs around the country in car shares with older amateur comics, who taught him “so much”.
Then in 2017 Darren was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
He went on to be the first black British male to be nominated for the Best Show Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019.
Since then as well as starring in a number of TV shows, he has his own Radio 4 series, Black Label.
But he bears his former gang no malice, explaining: “Ultimately what they did saved me, because I could have still been hanging out with them and some of them have been in and out of prison, some of them were doing drugs, which I never did.
“There’s no hatred for any of them.
“I genuinely hope they’re doing all right because I know that deep down, at the time, we were all good kids.”
- Dancing On Ice starts on January 15, on ITV and ITVX
- Tickets for Darren's Roadman tour are now on sale. Go to darrenharriott.com for details.
