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Chapter 1: What is the significance of Lenny Henry's early career?
Coming to you live from London, this is Giles Bradruth with another episode of Rosebud. Welcome to Rosebud. Welcome to another episode of Rosebud. And every week I say to you, this is a special episode of Rosebud. And this one is another very special episode of Rosebud.
Oh, by the way, if we've not met before, my name is Giles Brandreth and I am the host of Rosebud, which is a podcast of which there are more, a hundred more earlier episodes. So if you enjoy this one, feel free to go back and dip into our catalogue. We really have had conversations about people's early memories with all sorts of folk.
Today, my special guest is somebody who I've admired ever since I first saw him on television. I think I saw his very first appearance on TV when he popped up on a talent show called New Faces. He was only 16 and he won that talent show. This was the young Lenny Henry. Then I got to know him as a very funny man. on the Lenny Henry Show in the 1980s.
And later still, I came to admire him hugely as an actor.
Chapter 2: How did Lenny Henry's upbringing influence his comedy?
I went to see him in Othello, and I've since, well, got to know him a bit. We have occasionally worked together. But today, we are going to be Rosebud on the Road. We're travelling to London, to Hammersmith, to the Riverside Studios, which is a fascinating building that's seen cinema history, back when it was built. Later, television history. Shows like Hancock's Half Hour were made there.
Later still, theatre history. I've appeared there myself in a couple of shows. Somebody who has appeared there before is Lenny Henry, which is why he was keen to come back to Riverside Studios to be part of Riverside Studios' 50th anniversary celebrations. So this is a conversation, a Rosebud conversation, with me and Sir Lenny Henry and a special audience. I hope you will enjoy it.
Actually, I'm almost certain that you will. Cue the applause.
Do you remember the first time you came into this building?
Chapter 3: What challenges did Lenny face as a black comedian in the UK?
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.
Chapter 4: How did Lenny Henry transition from comedy to acting?
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. So this was a great place to come in those days.
Good. Well, we're going to begin at the beginning of your story. It's a very good place to start. That's where we're going to start. OK. And I have to ask you this question. Lenny Henry, or, if I may say so, Lenworth.
Yeah, my mum named me after the doctor that delivered me. Really? Dr Lenworth was his second name.
Chapter 5: What was Lenny's experience like performing Othello?
Oh, thank you so much. It was a tampon, baby. You really helped me. You really helped me drag him out. What's your name again? Lenworth. I'm calling him Lenworth.
So who was George? Because it's Lenworth George Henry, isn't it? I don't know.
I don't know who George was, but Lenworth George Henry is my name, so I've got three first names.
Well done. Lenworth George Henry. Thank you. Born on the 29th of August, 1958.
Chapter 6: What role did Lenny's family play in his success?
Yeah, that's right.
Same day as Michael Jackson.
Really?
Yeah. Very good. I didn't make his money, but I'm doing all right.
So... now known as Lenny Henry. What is your Lenny? What is your very first memory?
My very first memory, very interesting. There's two, actually. I'm going to tell you the one that means the most. The first thing I remember is being in a cot with my sister Kay. Kay is four years older than me, so I was little.
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Chapter 7: How did Lenny Henry handle fame and public perception?
She was a bit bigger than me. And I remember holding on to the bars of the cot like I was in baby jail. And I was watching my mum and dad have a massive row. And that went on a lot in our house. It was literally like Plopi and Bluto fighting continually. And they fought a lot with fists. Jamaicans, male and female, fight with their fists. And often my mum would win.
So I was basically watching my mum beat the crap out of my dad. And it was two falls, one submission and a knockout. And I was only little, but I just thought, wow, this is crazy to be living in a household like this. And I didn't know why they were fighting. And I didn't find out for ages and ages and ages. And it turned out that my mum had been precluded from going to America forever.
A few years ago, she was a brilliant preacher, my mum.
Chapter 8: What lessons does Lenny Henry share about resilience and identity?
She could get up in church and she could preach extempore. She could just riff on the Bible. She knew the Bible inside out. And some church deacons came from the deep south in America, Alabama, I think. And they saw my mum in a Jamaican church and they went, well, you need to come to America because you could support your family by doing this. My mum really wanted to go and my dad said no.
Winston said, no, why should I let you go to America, bloody Elvis Presley, bloody Little Richard, bloody Fat Domino, preaching and making all that. He didn't want her to go. So he forbade her going, and it made her angry. And then one day, my Uncle Clifton, who was in the Midlands in the 50s, and he'd been working in a factory, wrote to my mum, and he said this, Dear Winnie, Come to England.
It is such a lovely place and the people are very friendly. Every day they greet me with a smile and say, welcome. I'm working in a factory. I get 30 shillings a week. That's good money.
And you must come over here and you can earn money and send for everybody else because we've got four brothers and sisters, two brothers, two sisters in Jamaica and bring everybody over and you can support the family because it's good money. P.S. Bring me a wife. And my mum did do that.
She bought him a mail-order bride called Madge, my Auntie Madge, and she came over with my mum and my Auntie Pearl.
A mail-order bride? Explain that.
Yeah, like during the war, you know. It's something that happens in Christian communities of finding a suitable woman of the church, and he just said, ask around and see if there's anybody who wants to come to Britain and wants to marry a not particularly good-looking older man. And Madge said, I'll go to... Because...
The implication was this was escape from Jamaica where people were very, very poor. And this is the late 1940s? No, this is the mid-50s. Mid-50s, OK. And there's no money in Jamaica. There was a bauxite boom for a while. But generally, people were very poor. They'd just been a hurricane. And because of the British Commonwealth passport... We had freedom of movement.
We could go anywhere we wanted in the British Empire. So they came over via a boat. And if anybody's seen Three Little Birds, they'll know what happened. How many of them were there? There were three of them. And my mom came to Britain before my dad. My dad stayed at home with Seymour Hilton. I know, the guy who advertises the Premier and has a brother called Hilton. Wow.
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