Introduction
Leon Mayne did not want to come on this podcast. He hates things like this. He is an award-winning screenwriter and producer whose productions air in over 80 countries, whose client list spans Netflix, the BBC, Channel 4, Warner Music and the BFI, and he opened the conversation by saying he has never really thought of himself as a leader.
By the end, that idea does not survive. In this conversation with Sope Agbelusi, his friend of over 20 years, Leon talks about pioneering Black British web series with Brothers With No Game, the years he wanted to quit, the room where he was asked to make a Black show whiter, and the difference between external success and internal happiness.
The introvert who writes to speak
Leon studied business and management at Brunel, the path his mother preferred, but never stopped writing. As a quiet child and lifelong introvert, writing was his way of communicating with the world, and it was therapeutic. After university, the itch to do something bigger led to a user-generated blog with friends, writing about politics, relationships and sport, and the audience response told him this was not a hobby. It was a calling.
Brothers With No Game: ahead of its time
The relationship posts drew the most traffic, and Brothers With No Game spun out of them, honest, funny, edutainment-style writing about single life from a Black male perspective, published under aliases. Within a year the blog had a million unique visits and, to Leon's surprise, an audience that was mostly women and international from the start.
He resists the framing that he set out to lead a revolution in Black programming. Being around three-dimensional Black women and men was his everyday reality; showcasing them was the foundation, not a statement. He just wanted to make something dope. But the legacy found him anyway: he recently script-edited a BBC comedy because its creator says in every interview that he makes work because of what Brothers With No Game did.
The room where it went wrong
The reality of being first was brutal. Brands wanted the anonymous writers to reveal themselves; Leon refused, because it was about the work, not the fame. Then came television. A production company wanted to develop the web series but opened the meeting by questioning a Black ensemble cast, suggesting it would not appeal to "a family in Mansfield", and asking whether they had considered making two of the four brothers white. Leon describes blacking out with disbelief. He calls it what it was: not quite racism, but ignorance, and a total lack of understanding of the audience.
The cost nobody posts about
Building something first, with no funding, no three-year plan and weekly demands from a huge audience, took its toll. Leon is candid that it was a depressive period despite outward success: a business, a relationship, friendships, all competing for a person running on empty. He lost a friendship for a time. Asked whether he would do it the same way again, his answer is no.
Lockdown gave him the pause to name the lesson: he had been chasing external happiness, the career, the projects, while the things that make you internally happy, family, friendships, faith, soulful connection, were under-invested. When he rebalanced, work started flinging itself at him. As Sope reflects: if you are running on empty, everything you give costs more.
Nearly quitting, every year
For about five years, Leon wanted to quit every single year. Each time, a new project arrived, sometimes what he calls God's timing, and carried him into the next year with a little optimism. What actually kept him going was a private metric: improve on something every project. Structure, character, story, anything, as long as each project is better than the last, he is moving forward. Thinking about work from the angle of self-improvement, he says, makes everything else matter less.
He is also honest about celebration: clapping for himself does not come naturally. He does not post his wins. He finds gratitude easiest out loud in prayer, and he is learning to acknowledge the smaller milestones while still short of his destination.
What the industry gets wrong
Leon's diagnosis of UK television is specific. Working screenwriters are now competing not just with each other and big names, but with IP, podcasts, plays, books, and with influencer clout. Channels claim to want fresh writers, but numbers and fame increasingly beat quality, which he calls commissioners being lazy. His fixes: commission bravely on the strength of the script, diversify who the commissioners actually are rather than parking diverse hires in diversity roles, and serve the neglected audience between youth programming and family television, the generation who watched their channels vanish in their twenties.
His practical advice for emerging creatives still stands: web series remain one of the best CVs there is, and distributing to smaller streaming platforms across Africa, Europe and North America has been real bread and butter for him.
Leadership as legacy
Leon's definition of leadership: set an example and a legacy for the next generation, be pioneering in some way, and stand apart for others to follow and be better. He did not set out to do it, and he heard it from filmmaker after filmmaker anyway: we are in the industry because of what you did. As Sope tells him, leading yourself and leading others is exactly what he has been doing all along, whether he claims the title or not.
