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‘Ghosts’ actor Kiell Smith-Bynoe on rap battles and chicken shops in Forest Gate

The star reminisces about his formative years in E7

Isabelle Aron
Written by
Isabelle Aron
Features Editor, Time Out London
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I went to an all-boys secondary school called St Bonaventure’s in Forest Gate. I’d walk down Upton Lane and get the bus to my nan’s house after school every day.

There was a pizza shop and a chicken-and-chip shop on Upton Lane, which was where everyone would meet up. That street became my performance area. I started rapping when I was 12 and we used to have clashes outside the chicken-and-chip shop. I was at my sharpest then. I’d write new lyrics every day in class. It taught me about deadlines: at 3.25pm, I’d leave school and be expected to be on Upton Lane with some new bars. I sometimes channel that in my work now.

Everything happened outside the chicken-and-chip shop on Upton Lane: clashes, confrontations between the boys’ school and girls’ school. It was also the route to a lot of places: my nan’s house, the Theatre Royal Stratford East, where I did my training.

Upton Lane was where I found my place in the group as the joker, the entertainer, sometimes the instigator. I gained my confidence there. I was there for performance reasons mostly – and sometimes the girls.

Kiell Smith-Bynoe is in ‘Ghosts’ on BBC One and BBC iPlayer now.

Read more from this series:

‘Hamilton’ star Giles Terera on the pizza that changed his fate

Candice Carty-Williams reminisces about the Camberwell market of her childhood

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