Comedian Darren Harriott has spoken frankly about his one-time membership of a gang and how his life could have so easily gone in a different direction. In an interview with Chris Harvey in the Telegraph the Birmingham comedian, who is set to appear in the new series of Dancing on Ice before going on tour later this year, spoke at length about his pre-comedy past.

 

Harriott talked candidly about his father, recalling a phone call from him at the end of 1999: "I was so happy to hear from him. And there was so much finality about the chat, it was, you know, ‘Be good at school’ and all that sort of stuff. And I was like, ‘Dad, when am I gonna see you?’ ‘You’ll see me soon. Don’t worry.’”

 

His father was calling him from prison. "I was 11. And then three months later, he hanged himself."

 

It was then that Harriott became part of a gang and bought a knife: “If somebody had attacked me, or my friend, I would 100 per cent have stabbed them...I could have been one of those kids who killed somebody or was killed.”

 

Fortunately for Harriott he changed direction after a falling out which resulted in him ending up in hospital on New Year’s Eve 2004. It was at that point that he decided to pursue a career in comedy. But Harriott knows that his life could have been very different and hopes that his example might stop others from going down a path that he so nearly went down.