Kingsley Ben-Adir on The Graham Norton Show

AFTER eye-catching performances as Barack Obama and Malcolm X, Kingsley Ben-Adir has become the rising star they all want to interview – landing a chair on The Graham Norton Show on Friday evening.

But – oh yes – the New Journal got to him first… 26 years ago. Long before his success in Peaky Blinders, Vera, The Comey Rule, and this year’s highly acclaimed One Night In Miami, Mr Ben-Adir had a real life drama of his own on his hands when a pet spider escaped from his home in Kentish Town.

As the former William Ellis pupil told Mr Norton on the BBC’s flagship weekly chat show, he “made the front page of the Camden New Journal” after police with riot gear were called to help find the “bird-eating spider” back in 1995.

Mr Ben-Adir, now 35, was just a boy when the arachnid, who he had called Charlotte, disappeared. The reporters on the paper at the time seemed to enjoy telling his horror film story, explaining that “15 nervous police officers” had been sent to catch the spider.

Fellow guests on Mr Norton show – including Stanley Tucci and Kate Winslet – were engrossed as he recounted the search. “It sounds like a bull**** story but the tarantula escaped,” he said.

“Some member of the public saw the bird-eating spider, which is the size of my hand, and called the police and the police have called more police – and more police have called the fire brigade and the fire brigade have called London Zoo. They’ve taken it to London Zoo and me and my Mum collected it the next morning – but it made the front page of the Camden New Journal.”

And after we ran the story, Chat magazine called him up and offered to pay £200 to interview the family. At the time, the actor’s mother said she thought the spider was trying to follow her son to school. Mr Ben-Adir is quickly becoming hot property in the acting world.

Kingsley Ben-Adir makes an appearance in the CNJ in 1995

He plays the black rights activist Malcolm X in One Night In Miami, an Amazon film which depicts a fictional meeting with the likes of soul singer Sam Cooke and boxer Muhammad Ali. He has often talked proudly about coming from a Kentish Town council flat and still lives in the area.

Drama lessons at William Ellis School have also been credited with helping him.

Asked at a fashion shoot last year what he would do if was to create his own television series, he said: “It would have to be about Kentish Town – how I grew up, the people that I know and knew, and how it’s changed.”