Writer and director Reggie Yates on his love of community and the ever-changing landscape of London on The Modern House Podcast
On The Modern House Podcast our host and co-founder Matt Gibberd invites cultural tastemakers and creative thinkers to select their top three living spaces in the world. Our recent guests, including John Pawson, Clare Wright and our co-founder Albert Hill, have spoken about a spectrum of places far and wide. However, this episode’s guest, the writer and director Reggie Yates, does things a little differently.
If you’re a millennial who grew up watching TV in Britain, chances are you’ll be familiar with Reggie Yates. He’s perhaps first and foremost remembered as a host on tween morning TV shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as Diggit and Smile. A roster of presenting roles followed suit, including stints on Top of the Pops and BBC Radio 1. But as his audience matured, so did Reggie: by 2012, he was making compelling documentries on British gangs and extreme regimes around the globe. As a result, Reggie has visited a whole host of challenging living environments – from South African slums to Texan prison cells – and is humbled by his life in London.
Although he currently resides south of the river Thames, Reggie is a north Londoner at heart. He grew up in Islington on a council estate and is one of seven siblings. He spent a great deal of time at his friend’s townhouses in the area and set himself the goal to have such a home one day. Thanks to his extensive catalogue of work, his target has been met: his experience of home to date include a number of houses in the captial he’s had the pleasure of renovating – including his current south-east London residence.
After spending his career in front of the camera, Reggie grew curious to learn what happens behind it. In recent years, he’s been honing his writing and directing skills and his latest project is a feature film to premier on the silver screen. Titled Pirates, it’s a homage to his formative years as a late teen on the garage scene. The story follows a trio of high-spirited 18-year-olds as they travel from north to south London on New Year’s Eve in 1999 to the infamous Twice as Nice garage night in Vauxhall.
There are two common threads that run throughout Reggie’s three favourite places: the first – as you might have guessed – is London, the backdrop to his life, home and now film. The second is community, something that he holds close to his heart. As he says, “a building is nothing without the people in it.” Listen to the episode to discover Reggie’s choices, which aren’t strictly living spaces per se, but thriving social hubs. Plus, he discusses the similarities between writing and directing and renovating a home. Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode and, as always, we’d be grateful if you could rate and review us. Happy listening!
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