She left her home in Bristol at the age of 18, but now comedian, actor and TV presenter Jayde Adams is back in the city. And her return will be the subject of a funny, poignant and emotional documentary being broadcast on Monday evening on BBC1, as part of the We Are England slot.
The Bedminster star told Bristol Live last September about her decision to return home, after she’d bought a house near where she grew up, and was having it refurbished by her family of tradesmen.
And that experience, along with revisiting her old haunts and meeting up with old friends, has made an emotional rollercoaster of a documentary which goes from sharing banter with Bedminster’s singing greengrocer Darren Jones, to singing Pie Jesu in St Mary Redcliffe Church in honour of her sister, who passed away 11 years ago.
Read more: Ten years on - why our Jayde is moving back to Bristol
Viewers will see Jayde explain that she wanted to return home to be nearer her family, after moving to London to make her career in the entertainment industry, and also because she wanted to be somewhere where her South Bristol accent wasn’t considered odd. The film will show her meeting up with an old school friend and her favourite music teacher at St Mary Redcliffe School, 25 years after she honed her creative talents in the music room every lunchtime.
It also shows her going back to the community hall where her aunt ran disco dance classes that she and her sister Jenna excelled at - Jenna more than Jayde, she admits - and meeting her aunt and another old friend who she used to dance with. And Jayde, who was ranked fourth in the latest Bristol Cool List last autumn, also takes a trip down East Street in Bedminster, proclaiming her South Bristol roots.
“I’m from a place called Bedminster, South Bristol. It’s more real,” she said, inadvertently entering the North-South Bristol debate. “North Bristol’s not as real, all the posh people live in North Bristol, all the Bristolians live in South Bristol,” she added.
As a teenager, Jayde worked on the fish counter in Bedminster Asda, which was recently converted to a sushi bar. And her hopes of being recognised on her old stomping ground were a little deflated with a visit to East Street’s famous singing greengrocer Darren Jones.
Darren claimed not to know who she was, and when Jayde asked for free fruit and veg in return for a promotional picture on Instagram, the greengrocer even pretended not to know what Instagram was - East Stree Fruit Market does have its own, regularly-updated Instagram page.
But throughout the documentary, the loss of Jayde’s sister Jenna, who died from a brain haemorrhage 11 years ago, is a constant thread through the documentary. She, her friends and her parents talk about her life and loss, and the documentary closes with Jayde singing Pie Jesu in St Mary Redcliffe Church, as a tribute to her sister.
“The last time I was in St Mary Redcliffe Church was my sister’s funeral, but I was never going to sing at her funeral, because it’s really hard to sing when you’re that emotional, but it would be really, really lovely to sing in there now and sing a song she loved, as well,” she explained.
- We Are England’s film about Jayde Adams is called ‘My Hometown: Jayde Adams: Coming Home’, and is on BBC1 at 8.30pm on Monday, April 4.
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