Six Degrees of Detergent
What's the connection between the winner of Love Island and Manga Entertainment?
I listen to a lot of LBC and a lot of podcasts while I work at my desk. It becomes a calming type of white noise and is my second most preferred background sound after Radiohead. One thing that always cuts through for me though, are the various Surf laundry detergent ads starring Love Island winner, #DaniDyer that seem to appear every five minutes!
Why am I writing about Dani Dyer and washing detergent? What's that got to do with anime? In short. Not a hell of a lot, but please bear with me.
Apart from taking a perverse personal enjoyment from her "What's that smell?" and "Perf with Surf" advertisements, which it's worth pointing out first launched in the summer of 2019, and are still driving people mad five years later, I worked for the company that produced and distributed one of her first films.
The MangaUK office was located on the opposite side of Heddon Street, directly opposite where this photo was taken, on the 2nd floor at No.6. There’s a black plaque situated above the doorway pictured in the iconic album cover.
My former employer, Manga Entertainment, LTD used to be owned by the American indie distribution company, Anchor Bay Films. The UK operation was based out of 6 Heddon Street, W1B 4BT in London's West End. I worked at this location between 2005-2019. Heddon Street is famous for being the location of the iconic David Bowie album cover for "Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars" as well as being the home to MOMO, London's favourite North African eaterie, which once counted Stella McCartney, Naomi Campbell and Madonna as regular customers.
The movie that Anchor Bay Films UK distributed and co-produced with Richwater Films, was the Britsploitation flick, "We Still Kill The Old Way" (2014). Written and directed by Sacha Bennett and starring a host of heavyweight British character actors including Ian Ogilvy, James Cosmo and a terrifying cameo from Steven Berkoff, and of course, Dani Dyer in a critical supporting role, and she was great.
The movie was co-produced by my former colleagues, Rod Smith and the late, great Colin Lomax for Anchor Bay. I remember those times well. I know it gave my colleagues a few sleepless nights, a fair amount of stress and frustration. That's all part of the joy of making movies. What I remember the most fondly was Colin's excitement about set visits and how well the dailies came out. Their courageousness inspired me to give producing a go, which spawned Manga’s co-pro projects, Cannon Busters and In This Corner of The World.
The best memory of this time was meeting Dani Dyer and her clan at the special "family & friends" screening Anchor Bay hosted at The Ham Yard in Soho. Dani's father, the imitable Danny Dyer attended and I was very starstruck. He and his partner were so proud of their daughter. It was really sweet to witness. It was a great night out.
And that is my Dani Dyer story for the day. It's great to see how well she's doing these days. She deserves it. She's a proper grafter. Just like her dad.