I amIn the BBC comic series ghostsTwo modern herbalists, Mike and Alison, inherit a mansion inhabited by ancestral spirits. You’d think viewers would be enraged by the absurdity of ghosts that could pass through the walls while walking on solid ground, or the unreasonability of the twenty youth’s first step on the property ladder being a 14-bedroom hall, but no. Instead, in 2020, some are more worried about the fact that Mike is black and Alison is white. I have seen a lot of comments about that, and even if you look at the trailer on YouTube, there are people who complain about it, “All multi-ethnic couples are on TV nowadays,” Kiel Smith BennoWho plays Mike. “I understand that’s how some people feel.”

Then, via the video link from his home, Smith-Bynoe gave me a shy smile. “It makes me a little happy. I like,” You can comment on everything you like on YouTube but you can’t do anything about it. Commissioned – two more times. ” A third Ghost series was commissioned before the second aired.

One of the things that I made The first ghost series This result was the relationship between Smith-Bynoe and Call the Midwife star Charlotte Richie Like Alison. After she falls out the window and opens her head, Alison can see ghosts but Mike can’t, although if he can he will probably turn off the ghost lights of the dead romantic poet who continues to put the moves on his wife.

Charlotte Richie as Smith Benno's agent in Ghosts.
From there? … Richie and Smith Benno in Ghosts. Photo: Stephen Pesquet / BBC / Monumental TV

Smith-Bynoe, at age 31, has become one of the funniest comedians on TV – starring not only in Ghosts, but as Dean’s real estate agent on Channel 4 State’s Flats And delicious promi, no one jovial at the BBC A man like Maupin. You might have also seen him with Natasia Demetriou in the ads for the BBC iPlayer “Lost at Some” campaign, as an ignorant couple who don’t understand why the BBC is broadcasting tripe as Ghosts. He says, “There are 14 bedrooms in each ghost room.” “Sorry – where’s the entertainment in that?” She asks. “Thank God we are living in a new building.”

Feel the fun of Smith-Bynoe in Ghosts from a recent Instagram post celebrating Richie’s birthday: “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather dance around a 500-year-old house. Dead or alive.” “We are so similar in our sense of humor and silliness,” he says, “and they definitely saw it and knew it would work. It’s a wonderful partnership – regardless of when you punched me in the face.”

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Was that part of the script? “Of course not. There was this scene in the first series where, since we’re plagued with all these ghosts, we don’t have much time to get over our whims as a couple. She tried to wake me up in a sexy way and she punched me. That’s what Charlotte looks like. It’s my words when she tries to be sexy.”

The dead are mostly played Awesome date Veterans, who also wrote the sitcom.

Funny dead ... ancestral spirits are in ghosts.
Funny dead … ancestral spirits are in ghosts. Photography: Stephen Pesquet / BBC / Monumental TV

Smith-Bynoe’s goal is now to write more comics himself. He co-wrote Enterprice and the BBC Three sitcom about two entrepreneurs and their scooter-based businesses that will definitely fail. And during the lockdown he was writing a pilot. But he really wants to get into the Ghosts book room. “Only one episode is going to be good.”

First of all, though, he wants to defend someone else’s choice of Ghosts. Doubts were broadcast about Kitty, the young, noble black Georgian who played the role Lolly Adivob. As for Smith-Bynoe, the complaints show that many Britons do not know their history. “It is evidence that there is no black history in schools that makes people believe that there is no way a black Georgian girl can exist.”

The problem he believes is that the national curriculum tends to highlight the importance of black lives, but only if they are Americans. “It is a shame that so many of my fellow people of color have had to learn their own history lessons. We are not learning about important black figures in British history.” He cites a recent Google Doodle logo he presented to him Harold MoodyThe Jamaican-born doctor who founded the Colored Association in London in 1931, after lobbying for fellow people who found it difficult to find housing or work in Britain. “It’s called the British Martin Luther King, and I’ve never heard of it.”

emission Black lives matter This summer made him vacillate between hope and despair. “There is a lot of work to be done but I kind of hope people get to the right places and that means we’ll have better representation.” But he gives up on some of his Facebook friends.

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“I knew that people on Instagram or Twitter had similar views to me, whereas Facebook might be people I added 10 years ago or met once. I thought it was important to have two posts on Facebook, so it wasn’t the echo room.” On the face of it, his publications were not exceptional. Everyone dealt with a brief black life – George FloydAnd the Thank you AbdiAnd the Devont Heart. It sparked a lot of conversations. But it also means that you are able to know that the person you went with to drama school with is a racist person. I’m glad I found out and got rid of them. “

Smith Benno wanted to be an actor as soon as he made his debut at the age of four. He was the owner of the bar in his elementary school’s birth play. “I had one line,“ It’s around the back. ”So I said that and everyone laughed. I thought, ‘That was good, this applause. I can pay for things with applause. If I’m a little smarter, I realize being on stage doesn’t make you any money. Absolutely “. But he was addicted, attending summer drama schools, and training at Oriental Drama School 15, before honing his stand-up comedy clips in Hackney Empire.

Today he is keen to emphasize the seriousness of his acting skills. His first professional role was in a crime drama Whitechapel In 2012 as Tony Hodart, a recently murdered brother of London, is required to collapse in front of police investigators. “In the audition I cried for real, and on the first and second show I did too. And in the third case I said,“ What, again? ”I don’t think I had anything left. Fortunately, the makeup had a tear stick. What are they? “They are like Vicks but in a bowl of lipstick as you wipe it under your eyes and in about 20 seconds it will get better.”

He watched his professional debut with his teammates on his birthday in 2012. “It was 45 seconds but I thought,” It worked. Hollywood, here you come. And then I didn’t work for a year. ”Instead, he tried another path to stardom. In 2012, he did 40 movies on YouTube with mates from his area (like Idris Elba, who is from East Ham) and quickly became a comedic name on the YouTube scene. His demo was seen before Fonejacker Creator Kaifan Novak, who made him one of his banter on a satirical news show on Channel 4 Britain Today, tonight.

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Smith Benno’s career might have taken a different path had he capitalized on his success as MC Klayze Flaymz when he was still in the sixth level. “we [Klayze Flaymz and his mates Jaxor, Terra and Ray] They were doing a lot of serious things like Red Hot Entertainment. Then one day I was going to audition and I thought of one segment of a song about the chicken shop opposite where we used to rehearse. By the time I got off the test, the guys had finished their poems and we had this song. “

authorized Junior Spanish (After the £ 1.50 favored by Kiell Special), the song had 30,000 views which at the time [2007] It was a big deal, and we got a little bit of fame. But I hated him with passion. This is so stupid. ”Well, you say it, but the million people who watched it on YouTube might be affected.” Original Chicken experts Bloodclart [sic]As one commentator says. ”This tune sums up that era in the mid-2000s nicely. Historians over hundreds of years will watch this video and be enchanted by the content and lyrics, “another says.

Smith-Bynoe claims to have given up on the dirt “because I’m not in love with it.” However, it’s still worth checking out A twist recently on Comedy Central In which he played Stormzy’s flatmate and chubby co-star Bosski as he performs a tune called Day One Mandem. Her hypothesis is that the icon of dirt cannot go anywhere – the doctor’s surgery, bed, shower – without being shadowed by his entourage, many of whom he does not know. And then: “Go deep when I go to my nanny / Finally I had to leave there soon / Show me all the gang fits in Uber.”

“That’s all right,” he said to me when I remembered this performance, laughing, “But I have more than one laughing. I really want to do something serious. I want to play a guy on a horse in a period drama.” In a bouffant shirt? “Sure. Why not?” Then he explodes at the idea of ​​riding a horse in a puffy shirt. Kiell Smith-Bynoe couldn’t be serious for long.

Ghosts on BBC One and IPlayer.