by Reggie Yates
This was without doubt the first time I found myself bending to accommodate on camera and it cut like a knife. I’d promised myself to always be me no matter the circumstance and as I left the hotel, I knew this was a test in my ability to do so.
Rising from nothing to having anything he wants
With over twelve million people still living in shacks, South Africa is riddled with those in need. My Johannesburg hotel nestled among the wealthy was a world away from where I was being taken. Joining the huge convoy of cars rammed with assistants and security, Mboro led me to a township called Barcelona. Predominantly made up of shacks and small brick-built houses, it was one of the many townships in which – it was explained to me – the prophet supported families and visited to give blessings.
Stopping for snacks en route, Mboro was mobbed. Literally. The gas station came to a standstill as people flocked for photos and selfies. The man was a star. As he embraced every screaming fan and stopped to talk with anyone who approached, I could easily have been with David Beckham. A giddy shop assistant explained to me that simply by touching his arm she might receive some blessings. Thank all that is good he never kissed her on the cheek. She probably would have wet herself, then spontaneously combusted.
There was something about the outpouring of adoration that caused the prophet to soften. His approval of my clean shave and fresh shirt definitely helped, as out of nowhere he opened up. Sharing with me his humble beginnings as a kid living in poverty selling fruit on the roadside, Mboro spoke softly and passionately about his belief. He was obviously a gifted entertainer, the crowds alone were very real proof of that, but his belief was that his greatness came from god.
Rising from nothing to having anything he wants was for him a sign that he was chosen. For the first time we agreed on something. This was definitely a man who was gifted and blessed with the ability to command attention, but more importantly lead. Where our opinions split was on what that ability should have been used for.
At the time of making the film, 45 per cent of black South Africans were living in poverty and the hope that rose in the fall of Apartheid was now in short supply. As we walked through the township of Barcelona, Mboro inspired and lifted everyone he met; his mere presence was a shot in the arm for everyone he touched. From blessing people in the street, to praying for a family who had had one relative murder another, I saw first-hand how this tiny man was a giant in this environment. He had undeniable power and it was palpable.
In prayer with the family, even I felt uplifted. Motivational daggers, reminding everyone in attendance of their blackness, their power and their pride, bolstered his requests of god. One of his comments has stayed with me to this day. We were stood in a cramped, low tin-roofed home, which was the site of a murder days before. The grieving family were told, ‘You will succeed if the shack you stand in is not inside of you.’ I found it hard not to love everything he gave that family. It wasn’t financial, it was spiritual.
On our trip to Barcelona, Prophet Mboro charmed me just as much as he left me conflicted and frustrated. Those huge and packed collection boxes fund his lifestyle, but clearly the giving is a choice. In my confusion, speaking to younger parishioners felt like the best way to find some clarity. The ensuing conversations only threw up more questions as balance and logic was clear in their assessment of the church and its finances.
‘It is a personal choice for somebody to give,’ said twenty-three-year-old Tooli. She was adamant she wouldn’t want to be led by a pastor who doesn’t seem to be progressing in life. As far as she was concerned, it was the job of the church to maintain his lifestyle.
The prophet is taken care of by his congregation, so the logic goes, while their lives are a reflection of how the church is taking care of them. The better he looks the more blessed they all can be. I didn’t argue with Tooli, but it still didn’t sit well.
We have white people here, but you’re whiter than white people
Respect is and will always be of great importance to African men of a certain age. I knew this going in. This speaks to why there wasn’t one meeting where I didn’t wait at least an hour. Mboro felt that I didn’t respect him or his world and, in fighting to gain a level of understanding, his expectations were on collision course with my ignorance from day one.
On some level, the rub between Mboro and I was down to cultural expectations on both sides. This was a man who expected behaviour totally foreign to me and, in hindsight, I was exactly the same. The prophet felt I didn’t give the level of respect he demanded and interpreted it as arrogance and pride. The majority of his frustration came from my cynicism and the lesson was clear. Maybe I wasn’t as objective and balanced as I thought?
It was the last day of the shoot and I was back at Incredible Happenings. It was a Sunday and the building was packed as usual but Mboro didn’t want me inside. He called for me to humble myself in his world, I had my blackness questioned and, with my most recent lesson still fresh in my mind, I decided not to react.
He barked at me, ‘We have white people here, but you’re whiter than white people,’ which lit a fire inside I did everything to extinguish. At this stage of the project I’d learned a valuable lesson, one that would go on to serve me well in my future career, particularly while shooting in Russia.
Mboro was the classic difficult contributor. He was a man who needed to be handled with care at all times and only challenged or pushed when it best served the film. My ego and emotions would have to come second to the greater purpose: the documentary. My earlier missteps nearly lost us our fascinating central character. To truly get under the skin of who this man was and more importantly to tell a full and objective story, I needed to shake my vanity.
Wrestling with a contributor simply to win an argument or make a point would deliver a great sequence. But how would it serve the greater story? I’d learnt by nearly losing the prophet that needing to be right rather than listening would stand in the way of the film. A lesson I’d never forget.
Eventually allowed in, the entire sermon was aimed at me. It was bloody awful. I could feel the eyes of thousands burning tiny holes in the back of my head. Mboro sat me front row and enjoyed making me squirm and watched every uncomfortable shift in my chair with glee.
Calling me on stage and handing me a mic, Mboro quizzed me in front of his audience as I silently shit my pants. He squared up and grilled me on my experience, pushing randomly to see if he could find a button to expose me as judgemental, disrespectful or dismissive. I was none of the above as I’d finally begun to get it.
I’d seen the man as a charlatan and didn’t understand the importance of the faith he instills in thousands daily. The man is brash, badly dressed and with an unbelievably high opinion of himself, but the part he plays in the happiness, optimism and mental health of his following appeared to be vital. I can say with complete confidence that his brand of religion isn’t what I want or need in my life but in his world, I totally understand how it fits, and on some level respect it.
On stage we made our peace, the crowd cheered and the prophet couldn’t help but smile. I’d escaped unscathed and won him and the crowd over with a huge roar as I unbuttoned my shirt to reveal his face on my Prophet Mboro T-shirt.
Then, something extraordinary happened. I honestly felt I was stood in front of someone I could actually see eye to eye with. That was until he asked the entire congregation to pull out and wave their underwear for blessings.
Whatever age I live until, that will forever be one of the strangest moments of my life. In an instant I was surrounded by thousands of pairs of pants being swung in the air like helicopter blades, in a church, by men, women and children of all ages. Final prayers were carried out as the entire congregation held their private parts and, whatever the level of weirdness you’re imagining right now, times that by a million and you’re still not even close to how it felt in that room.
The wealthy and congregation-funded Prophet PFP Motsoeneng Mboro challenged my mot
ivations, beliefs, authenticity and at times made me ask myself the question who am I really? In a strange way, he had made me question my relationship with faith, and more specifically patriarchy, in the context of poverty. It had been a fascinating, and at times humbling, adventure – but I couldn’t help feeling I flew home from South Africa with more questions than answers.
CHAPTER 2
FAR RIGHT OR WRONG?
From the very beginning, when I started out as a child, forging a career in TV has been strange and consistently challenging. Not that I really knew back then that there was such a thing as a ‘TV career’. For a start, there were very few black British faces who’d managed to maintain a long-term presence on our screens. This was always an issue for my parents, knowing what it was I wanted to do. The examples of long-term TV success for anyone who looked like me were few and far between.
For a lot longer than I should have, I would play a game with journalists, much to the amusement of my publicist at the time, Sara Lee. She and I would always laugh long and hard at the squirms of red-top writers as I’d challenge them to name five black faces regularly seen on British TV. The only rule given was that they weren’t allowed to count me, Lenny Henry or Sir Trevor McDonald. It was amazing to watch.
Sara Lee’s laugh is still just as husky and amazing, but thankfully playing that game isn’t as called for now due to things moving in the overdue direction of diverse representation. It’s a slow shift, but thank the lord I’m not on me tod anymore.
Despite my parents’ very understandable fears for me, I went from a child actor just starting out to an adult secure in long-term TV and radio contracts, and by my mid-twenties I was in a place of job stability. As my appearances presenting documentaries became less of a surprise to viewers and more of a regular occurrence, something shifted and I achieved a personal and professional milestone.
It’s only really in hindsight that I understand the significance of having a show on the BBC with my name in the title. As a viewer, it’s just a tiny detail telling you who’s fronting what you’re about to watch. As a programme-maker, to have the channel insist your name comes before the specifics of the film in question makes a bold statement. It meant that, from a professional perspective, it was a new day. What I represented, the audience I’d built and who I was as an individual had become a brand my employers wanted to shout about.
This marked the beginnings of my name alone actually standing for something. Looking back, I only now understand just how fragile that is. I was proud my name was associated with empathy, learning and programming of scale, and I wanted to ensure that the next series I made showed growth. With so many lessons learned during Extreme South Africa, I knew that there needed to be some changes.
Extreme Russia was the second series commissioned by the BBC in the ‘Extreme’ strand. For this particular film I would be working with an entirely new team. Far Right and Proud was our title and we were out to make a film unpacking Russian nationalism and its rise in popularity with young men and women.
It ended up being some of the most demanding but honest work I’ve ever done. The challenges we faced both on and off camera, alongside my willingness to put myself in uncomfortable situations for the good of the film, led to what I consider to be one of my strongest projects to date.
In the making of Far Right and Proud, my Russian experience took a decidedly dark turn as I found myself beginning to understand my role on camera as a complicit contributor. I was credited as a presenter but I wasn’t presenting. I was fronting the show, but I wasn’t the host. Walking into this series I understood that my role sat somewhere between the contributors I’d meet and the host walking the audience through an environment acting as their eyes and ears. This would often demand that my own dislikes or frustrations should be put firmly aside. I had to participate fully, regardless of the company. Listening to and truly engaging even in the presence of abhorrent views and at times people was the only rule. And this would be put to the test in a way I’d never experienced.
Growing up in the late 1980s, some of my early formative years were steered by the idiot box. Television was a mate, one who taught me lots of what I needed to know but so much more than I was ready for. Between the scathing political views on ITV’s Spitting Image and the occasional boob on Channel 4’s The Word, I was up past my bedtime and loving the baptism of fire.
Until my journey to Moscow to shoot Extreme Russia, my opinions of Russia would still be tied to that Gorbachev puppet on Spitting Image and the bad guy in Rocky II. Television had taught me well. My entire feelings towards the biggest country on the planet were bound to a pre-teen understanding of the satirical and stereotypical created in TV and film. Great.
Half expecting the first person I met to mumble, ‘If he dies, he dies,’ like the guy who killed Apollo Creed in the ring, I’d arrived in Moscow and had never felt cold like it. A clock on the street flipping between the time and the temperature showed me it was currently minus twenty-eight degrees. Shit had just got real. This wasn’t going to look or feel like anything I’d shot before.
Thanks to that Stallone movie, I assumed the pleasantries might be minimal, particularly given the project’s subject matter. Pushing my childhood fears of a spiky super power with nuclear capabilities to one side, it was time to grow up and see for myself what the city had to offer.
My team was totally new, but I found myself bonding quickly with my producer, who to my surprise was both younger and louder than me. Diana Aroutiounova met me at the airport and proved just as entertaining as my attempts to pronounce her surname. With jet-black hair cut into a razor-sharp bob, she wasn’t happy about my early observation of her likeness to Dora the Explorer. Regardless, we got on.
The role of a producer is a difficult one in documentary. When you’re working in small teams with even tinier budgets, your producer and their relationship with the fixer decide just how strong your film is likely to be before even a frame has been shot. But any fears that the nationalists we were set to meet could be an impossible nut to crack were alleviated as soon as I found out about Diana’s incredible talent to charm the pants off anyone – including knife-wielding nationalists. This would become our secret weapon.
Our timing couldn’t be more apt as we were making the series of films at a time when anti-Western feeling was high. Russian pride had taken on new meaning and president Vladimir Putin continued to speak to the ‘us against the world’ belief held by so many Russians. With the policies and cultural belief to support his ‘Russia First’ narrative, it’s no wonder his approval rating was 90 per cent. This unwavering belief makes Putin (still in power at the time of writing, having served a combined total of eighteen years as prime minister and president) one of the most popular leaders in the world.
On my first day in Moscow a visit to the famous Kremlin and Red Square was unavoidable. After an hour and with literally no feeling in my fingers or toes, it dawned on me. From the airport to the hotel, to now, stood in the centre of a busy and tourist-heavy Red Square, the only person of colour to be seen anywhere, was me.
Being the only black guy in any environment had never intimidated me. I’ve spent years in TV surrounded by all-white crews and I’d never allowed race to get in the way of my interactions with anyone. That being said, at this point my time in Russia was at around the three-hour mark. My presence was getting looks – not because of my spectacular sneaker choice (VisVim FBT for the sneaker geeks), but because of my skin colour.
I was a long way from home and I felt it. But then, strange looks aside, I was in Red bloody Square. I’d only ever seen the Kremlin on the news and suddenly it was right in front of me. It was a tourist hub and groups from around the world busied themselves with cameras and awful fuzzy hats bought from street vendors. On closer inspection, I was thrown by some of the other items for sale on those market stalls. T-shirts, mugs and, yes, even Russian dolls were all branded with one recurring theme: Putin. You’d think the man was royalty or a pop
star the way he was literally everywhere. Either Vladimir Putin’s profile was beyond that of the presidential and had ventured into the world of folk hero, or he was doing a damn good job of ensuring that’s how he was seen.
The animals love Putin
Making a play to cut through the unsubtle steers from Vladimir, I attended of all things a fashion show. Bear with me. I’ll raise my hand here to openly admit I’m one of those blokes. A lover of clobber, a tart for tailoring – call it what you will, I bloody love fashion. Wherever I travel in the world I always come home with a slightly heavier suitcase because there was a pair of trousers I had to own or a hat that would smash it with that shirt I bought. Yeah, it’s pathetic, get over it.
I figured a fashion event showcasing new designers could be a way into a young crowd of forward-thinking creatives. It was, but it also delivered its fair share of surprises.
I was seated awkwardly in the front row facing a woman with sunglasses way too big for her face. I couldn’t see her eyes, eyebrows or cheekbones but I could feel her judging my messy demeanour from behind the tinted glass. Hair gel man on my left and hair spray girl on my right threw up a gumbo of smells my poor stubby nose nearly crumbled beneath. I was sandwiched between abrasive power dressing (and smelling) fashion types and they were everywhere.
The lights went down and the DJ stopped playing house music your dad would approve of, replacing it with the really loud dubstep teenagers play in Ford Fiestas. The lights went up. The music was sour milk for my ears, but models were trotting out and the show had begun.
Being as this was a group show, the work just kept coming out. It ran for a lot longer than I was expecting. The other slightly surprising thing about the clothes on display was virtually every garment had some iteration of Putin’s face on it. I shit you not – dresses, T-shirts, handbags, hoodies, the lot. It was one of the more surreal moments in my life, so much so at one point I thought my drink had been spiked. By the seventh pair of Putin pum-pum shorts I thought it was a wind-up. Sadly it wasn’t, and unfortunately there were still several more designers to come.
