INTRODUCING DANNY LYER – TEDDINGTON’S ‘TOURISM’ AMBASSADOR
A local painter and decorator has exploded on social media with his hilarious video clips mocking Teddington and Richmond.
His real name is CRAIG POWER but his alter ego is DANNY LYER. He lives in Teddington and his astute observations are edgy and occasionally risqué and will not to be everyone’s taste. Here, he introduces himself to Teddington Town.
My name is Craig Power and I’m an actor/comedian from east London.
I was born in Hackney in 1983 (Karma Chameleon by Boy George was Number One in the charts) and from that very moment I was always destined to be a painter and decorator. Goodfellas accent.
I grew up on a council estate in Leyton called Oliver Close, an estate that consisted of 5 grey 20 storey tower blocks. the Taylor Swifts (lifts) were riddled with graffiti and urine and if your parents were still together, you were deemed posh.
I was never a fighter, but i could play football and had the ability to make people laugh. These were great defence mechanisms and were the equivalent of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. These skills would give me protection from the lads, many of whom would later end up in prison.
The character ‘Danny Lyer’ was born in my mate’s flat in Stepney Green 15 Ray Mears ago.
My mate steve, who was another Cockney actor trying to get a break in a very tough industry, was putting on cabaret night at Stratford Royal and wanted me to host it.
I’d had the idea of Danny Lyer floating around my swede for a while. It was loosely based on Danny Dyer but a much more exaggerated chavvy version. I was writing some jokes and my mate Steve said ‘let’s go out on the street and film something’ (this was the spark and a huge moment for me)
We bowled around the streets of the East End and he filmed me on a camcorder the size of a 4 pint of milk. The camera would probably be the same Declan Rice as a tube of pringles. i just bowled about improvising and pointing at stuff and basically chatting s*%t.
i didn’t think anything of it, but without me knowing, Steve edited the clips and the first Danny Lyer video was born. This was about 2011. He posted it on Facebook and everyone was cracking up.
This was my introduction into ‘do it yourself gorilla filming. No-one is gonna offer you a place at the table where we are from, we have to smash our way up.
I would go on to start a YouTube channel and would post a few more Danny Lyer vids. They gained a little cult following but i could never get consistent with writing and making vids. For many reasons, juggling full time work, and I didn’t have the equipment (this was before the iphone) so camera phones were not a thing, so i would rely on others to help me.
Eventually i invested in a camera and laptop, taught myself to edit but the videos would never do that great. Also, there was only YouTube at the time and various comedy forums.
Around 10 years ago, I moved to Teddington with my girlfriend Karina. She is born and bred here. When we first started dating i would come to Teddington of a weekend from east London and the area blew my marbles.
i was running about like Will Ferrell in Elf when he first gets to New York City.
The river, the lock, the amazing boozers, Bushy Park, the nature, the people, the High Street, the independent businesses. This was like the Maldives to me. People say hello before robbing you here (normally for the price of a latte) it was instant love. I’ not lying when I say this, I didn’t even know the place existed. Now I live here and I love it so much. It’s home.
Fast forward to now. We’ve got Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, so many outlets for creatives. Last year, I made a video in Richmond and it blew up on Tiktok. It was another spark i needed, then a week later i made a video in Teddington and that blew up. And now I’m making videos with Jimmy White and one of my idols Paul Weller. A year ago I had 1200 followers on Instagram. Now, i now have around 65k and 60k on Tiktok and the thing is growing and growing.
I’m still in full time employment (painting and decorating) so I’m juggling two full-time jobs and the balls are getting heavier but I remind myself that a year ago, i genuinely thought my dreams of being a performer were over.
My mate described my years of grafting away as ‘a 500 round fight where I’ve been getting smashed to bits but I’ve kept swinging.’ Hard work is finally paying off and I’ve had to work for everything I’ve got in my life and I’m proud of that.