Ex-criminal's chance in Hollywood

A FORMER drug dealer from Hackney told today how he has been offered the chance to write and direct a film in Hollywood.

Darren Raymond, 27, took up acting while in Pentonville Prison for firearms offences, drug trafficking and money laundering from May 2004 to November 2006.

When he was released he wrote three plays and a short film, Shoot And Score, which was shortlisted for the Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles last year.

This impressed British production company Black and White Pictures, which has asked him to fly to LA in January to work on Brooklyn Fare, a film about a mobster growing up and getting into gang fights in the Seventies.

After joining a drama course run by the London Shakespeare Workshop at Pentonville, Mr Raymond performed extracts from Othello at the William Poel Festival in the Theatre Royal while on day release. He took the lead role on tour after serving his sentence.

Mr Raymond said: "When I think about what my life was like five years ago and what I'm doing today, it's incredible." He now lives in Knightsbridge with his fiancée and their two daughters, aged three and 16 months.

His latest play, Wasted, is at the Intermission Theatre in St Saviour's Church, Walton Place, Chelsea.