The real Lenny Henry stands up

By LINDA HERRICK

British comedian Lenny Henry seems to have been around forever. In the early 70s, at age 16, he was the only "real" black person on the racist TV show Black & White Minstrel Show.

He went on to win hearts as wide boy "brother" Delbert and old black man Deakus on The Lenny Henry Show. He matured as temperamental chef Gareth Blackstock in the long-running Chef!, then sharpened his acting chops in three series of the high school drama Hope & Glory.

Along the way, he has worked tirelessly for 20 years in charity organisation Comic Relief, enjoyed a long marriage with equally famous Dawn French, and toured live stand-up around the world.

But So Much Things To Say, the one-man show he's bringing to New Zealand in August, is a landmark step. His first London West End show, So Much Things is a series of monologues featuring five characters (and Henry as himself) that has been hailed as brilliant tragi-comedy.

Said one London critic, "He could blow most of the competition out of the water." It sounds like the 45-year-old's coming-of-age.

Q. Let's talk about the show, which sounds like an emotional rollercoaster

A. Hopefully, it's a funny, emotional rollercoaster. It's stand-up comedy at the beginning, then I introduce the characters one by one. In the second half the characters take over and they talk about world events and how they are inter-related. It took ages to get it right but what was fantastic was the audacity of it. It struck a chord with people.

Q. It was your first time on the West End?

A. Yeah, I've been in this business for 30 years, and to go to the West End for the first time and get a result like this was really, really good. For a while I thought, well, maybe they don't think I'm good enough.

Q. But you've proved you are

A. Yeah, well, the West End is a big deal in this country. Comedians like Eddie Izzard and Billy Connolly do the West End all the time. I've never been given a shot and I kind of felt like, pick me, pick me! If you pick me, coach, I'll be great. Trust me.

Q. Could you introduce the characters to us, briefly?

A. Rachel is this woman who's been married for a very long time. She's bored witless and thinking about leaving her husband. Her role is thinking about the pros and cons of staying with this man.

Q. Then you've got Mr Lister

A. He came to Britain in the 60s and worked for British Rail. Now he owns a shop and is a cornerstone of the community. He reads all of the papers and is incredibly opinionated about everything from immigration to Tony Blair to the war in Iraq.

Q. And the Wolfman?

A. He's in an old people's home and he's incredibly pissed off he's not the man he was. When he was young, it was his mission to make love to as many women as possible. Now he's stuck in the home and his bladder's not working as well as it used to. He's a reduced man railing against the world.

Q. Daniel adds an interesting dimension

A. Yeah, he's a young man stationed in Basra reporting back home about what it's like there.

Q. What do you think about British troops being sent to Iraq by Blair?

A. haven't got a degree in political science but I read the papers every day and I know what I think. The reason I wanted to do this show this way is I'm confused over just about everything to do with this war. So I think it's fair enough for Daniel to be saying, 'What the hell is going on here? What am I doing here?' And I haven't got any answers. We did do a lot of research for this. We talked to soldiers who'd just been over there and we tried to get it as accurate as possible.

Q. The fifth character is Dominic

A. He's a city-type. He reflects that greedy, slightly right-wing attitude towards acquiring wealth. He's slightly anti-immigration, got lots to say about asylum seekers.

Q. You talk about aspects of your own life in the show, including your early stint on the Black and White Minstrel Show

A. My manager at the time didn't know what to do with me so he put me in the show as a second-spot comic. I was the first black guy to be in it and I did it for four years. It was horrible but I couldn't get out of it. In So Much Things, I talk about becoming a pariah in the black community. They couldn't understand what I was doing in that show.

Q. Your life changed in 1980 when you went to the Comedy Store and saw the new wave of comedy

A. Yeah, it was like a lightbulb going off in my head. Bing! Before that, the kind of comedy I had seen was in the variety area, telling jokes about their mother-in-law and boobs and bums. At the Comedy Store, there was Alexei Sayle, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson. They were doing jokes that were non-sexist and non-racist but they were doing quite racy, sexy, intelligent material.

Q. And, of course, you ended up married to Dawn French

A. Yeah, she's wonderful. When I met Dawn and we started going out, she would come and see me and say things like, 'That's a really good routine' or 'I don't think you should do that joke because it's a joke against yourself - why would you do that?'

Once I got the idea I didn't need to do jokes against myself, suddenly it became clear, that, yeah, she's right. I can do other stuff.

Q. Comedy can be a way of hiding but the audience wants to know who you really are

A. Yeah, that's true. You stop doing impressions of people then you start to figure out who you are. The only problem was, I had to become a man in the full view of the public eye. The public have seen all of my peaks and troughs.

So Much Things To Say: St James, Wellington, Aug 7-8; Civic Theatre, Auckland, Aug 9-10; Theatre Royal, Christchurch, Aug 13, 15