Backseat Cinema: How a Vauxhall Meriva Made Me a Filmmaker
When people talk about pursuing a career in the arts, they often imagine a single lightning-bolt moment. A sudden realisation. One day you wake up and declare: “I’m going to be in films” or “I’m going to paint pictures of fruit” or “I’m going to make sculptures that vaguely resemble boobs”
In reality, it’s rarely one grand epiphany. It’s a collection of smaller moments that build up over time. One of those moments for me came in 2007, when my mum bought a Vauxhall Meriva. She didn’t buy it for the spacious interior or its impressive fuel efficiency; it was the built-in DVD player with a foldout screen that sealed the deal. Her logic was flawless: if I was entertained, it didn’t matter whether it was the ten-minute drive to school or a three-hour slog to see family, I’d stay quiet in the backseat.
And she was right. It was in that car that I started falling in love with films and TV. I carried around a little plastic CD wallet full of DVDs, swapping them out for every trip. Around that time films became more than just entertainment, they became a safety blanket for a very socially anxious Joe. Jake Blues or John Constantine weren’t going to call you a “fucking weirdo” to impress a girl named Hannah or punt a football at your head. Even though I’d rotate most of the discs, a handful always stayed. Looking back now, those choices shaped the kinds of films I dream of making now. One of the earliest I remember was The Blues Brothers (1980), directed by John Landis and starring Saturday night live legends Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. That movie had seven-year-old me listening to and idolising Ray Charles’s so much that I’m sure my family wanted to ban ‘Shake a tail feather’ from being played in the house
The Blues Brothers taught me two important things: one, that comedy can be a visual art in itself, and two, that if you smash enough cars together, you’ve basically made a moving sculpture. At the time I didn’t know if I wanted to make films, paintings, or sculptures that vaguely resemble boobs, but I knew I wanted to create things that made people feel the way I did in the back of that car, amused, amazed, and a little bit inspired. Over the years, my tastes evolved, and so did my ambitions. That little DVD wallet grew into a collection full of films, sketches, and experiments. Every project I take on now carries a trace of that backseat curiosity the urge to explore, to try wild ideas, to break rules, and to make people feel something. And somewhere between the laughter, the music, and the smashed-up cars of my childhood, I realised that creating isn’t just fun, it’s important.
Thankfully, I was surrounded by family, friends, and people who took my love of story seriously and encouraged me to chase it. Without them, I never would have ended up at the Edinburgh Fringe, touring the country, or finding myself in rooms I never thought I’d belong in. Every step has felt like an extension of that backseat discovery, taking what once entertained a fidgety kid in a Vauxhall Meriva and turning it into something that entertains, moves, and maybe even inspires others. And if all goes well, maybe one day I’ll make something that sits in someone else’s DVD wallet scratched, overplayed, and absolutely life-changing.
