Sir Lenny Henry

Do you remember the first time you came into this building?

It was in the 80s, isn't it?

I lived nearby.

I lived on Sinclair Road in Shepherd's Bush.

And I used to come here and see things.

And the first thing I saw here, I think, was what was it, Albert.

And I was here with David Threlfall and I watched it.

And I was baffled.

blown away by this extraordinary story with two actors, two black actors from a theatre in Cape Town who came here and they basically did this whole show where they played 26 different characters between themselves.

And David and I watched it and just thought, that would be a brilliant thing to do, a show like that.

And then the next time, I think I saw Scrape Off the Black by Tunde Ikoli.

Two occasions of two extraordinary plays where I thought, yeah.

And...

Those plays actually connected me to a sense of black heritage, if you like.

I was very young and I'd grown up in Italy and talk like these and I hadn't seen much black theatre.

The people I'd seen who were off colour in the theatre were a band called New World who won Opportunity Knox.

LAUGHTER

At Birmingham Alexandra Theatre, and they were in Robertson Crew Show with Dick Emery.

So those are the only black people I've seen in the theatre.

So to come here and to see these extraordinary performances made me go, ooh, OK, maybe this is something I could do too.