The Life and Times of Danny Dyer by Tim Ward
Danial John Dyer was born in 1977 and has gone on to carve out himself quite a niché market – the Cock-er-ney wideboy pwropa nawty geeza.
Here, in the first of a series of, er, one, are five defining moments of Danny Dyer’s life and career.
1. It’s a right old barrel of Cockney knees-up
Imagine you’re a casting director working on a ‘gritty’, London gangster flick. You need a a bit of a geezer. A wideboy who can hold his own in a tear-up. Ray Winston is too old. You ring Danny Dyer. Danny has made the “oh yeah that Cockney prick” role his own. Mean Machine, the Football Factory, The Business and Outlaw being highlights in a glittering career. It’s a little known made-up fact that Danny Dyer holds the record for the most of amount of times someone has said ‘mug’, pronounced MAHG, in a film for Football Factory. He surpassed the previous record holder ‘Narrator’ in ‘The Definitive History of the Mug – 2500 BC to 2003′.
Sadly, one of Dyer’s last movie outings, Pimp, grossed just £205 at the box office. That’s not a typo. £205. In total at the cinema. As Chris Morris in Brasseye once said, ‘you’d have made more money auctioning dogs’.
What we did there. You see it.
2. Facking nawty Agony Aunt
Danny Dyer is a man of the world, of the people. A role model if you will. And as such people will look to him for advice. In 2010 Danny Dyer had a help column in the quintessential teenage rhythm weekly magazine, Zoo. In one issue Dyer received a definitely not made-up letter from Alex in Manchester who wasn’t over splitting from his girlfriend whereas she seemed fine. Danny’s advice?
“You’ve got nothing to worry about son. I’d suggest going out on a rampage with the boys, getting on the booze and smashing anything that moves. Then, when some bird falls for you, you can turn the tables and break her heart. Of course, the other option is to cut your ex’s face, then no one will want her….”
Suffice to say, this didn’t go down too well with, well, “people”. Dyer was universally criticised by women groups, support groups for abused women and even publishers of Zoo, Bauer Media, who Dyer felt had stitched him right up, probably like a mahg. Dyer’s column was dropped a few days later
"Wimmin' trabble? Caht 'er face san. Nah, fack off, I'm havin' a Rosy'
3. ‘Es got ET peerin’ Fru ‘is facking windahs’
In January 2010, Danny Dyer made what I still believe to be one of the funniest hours of television ever. Danny Dyer: I Believe In UFOs on BBC3, was 60 minutes of Dyer swaggering around the UK and America looking out for UFOs, meeting abductees, ‘interviewing’ Sir Patrick Moore, watching graining TV clips and generally being everything you would expect from a cockney geezah talking about aliens.
To borrow an extract or two from a blog I wrote about it at the time….
But Danny wasn’t done there. Not by a long shot. Off he went to Wiltshire and Schwopsha to look at picture of mutilated animals and more importantly to swagger around crop circles like he’s about to rob the joint. Dyer was mystified. “I don’t think yoor gaahn ‘av some lads larkin’ abowt doin’ this. It’s gotta be that mob up there”. By “mob up there” he of course means little green men.
He was also told that some blokes in a pub actually do them rather than ET and so off he went – waltzing into this “booza” like he was about to smash a poolcue into someone’s jaw.
“’Ello mate. Now, I’ve bin lookin’ at some crop circles araand ‘ere and dem fellas reckon it’s that mob up there. Now, you’re gaahn tell me avverwise aincha sunshine?” Which was said with so much geezerisation and bravado that I expecting him to start calling him a “mug” and a “slag” before smashing a pint glass into his face.
And in America…
The most startling piece of evidence being a video of the guy filming his living room window, where there was a flash and then a little alien head thing pops up, has a nosey in and goes. He walks over to the window, jumps, runs off and then the little green man pops up again.
“Tell you what, you looked camp there son, but facking ‘ell I don’t know what that was.” Dyer was convinced. “This fella ‘as got aliens peering through ‘is facking windaah”.
The whole blog is here, but please also go to youtube and…tell you what, I’ll do it for you. Watch it here. You won’t regret it.
Fackin' alee-uns innit guv
4. Dok-u-menaries
Mr Dyer has carved out quite a career of documentaries – as well as suggesting carving ex-girlfriend’s faces. The Real Football Factories, The Real Football Factories International and Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men. Sadly, Bravo weren’t brave enough to take the alliteration to the next level with Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Doberman Dogs.
The shows basically consist of Dyer meeting people much, much harder than him who abuse him, give him a slap and make him look foolish. It also features him running off a fair bit.
What you done to me Barnet you tart?
5. Christmas
How do you have the perfect Christmas? Well, I’d highly recommend you watch A Geezer’s Guide to Christmas. I would type out Danny’s tips here – but suffice to say I wouldn’t do them justice.
Avva dropa Pwort
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© 2012
Remember Human Traffic? Brilliant film. It all went so wrong after than.
Tim, if I were you I’d be careful. He’s threatened in the past to hit people ‘across their canister’. Now, fuck knows what that means, but my advice would be to not leave the house with any visible aerosols or 330ml soft drinks for the foreseeable future. Or else he might slice ‘em; Cockerney styley.
For this, I would actually give Mark Kermode one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbiKDfgkyBY&feature=youtube_gdata_player