A TV DRAMA about gangs and drugs… now where might they film that? Why, Hackney, of course.

Gentrifiers (as if anyone would admit to being one) often bemoan how non-Hackneyites, especially the media, associate the borough with crime.

Still, possibly to the dismay of hipsters, filming has been going on in Ridley Road Market, Dalston E8, and Well Street, Hackney E9, this month January 2019.

The star is Ashley Walters, the series has been bought by Netflix and it will screen this year.

It is a follow-on from Channel 4’s award-winning gang thriller, and entrepreneurial Canadian rapper-actor Drake is one of the producers of TB3, as the crew know it.

Walters, 36, made his name with the garagiste music collective So Solid Crew, and in Bullet Boy, among other feature films and TV series. Film crew have been dining in Intervention, the semi-secret café above the E8 2NH Turkish Food Centre — but not Walters. The star gets his own trailer.

David Altheer 190119

* Backstory: Ridley Road, TV star; Hackney and the property dealers

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