- Comedy & Cabaret
Topics:
- Comedians
Lenny Henry
Lenworth George Henry CBE (born 29 August 1958), better known as Lenny Henry, is an English entertainer born in Dudley, Worcestershire.
New Faces
His earliest television appearance was on the New Faces talent show in 1975 where he repeatedly won. The following year he appeared in LWT's sitcom The Fosters alongside Norman Beaton, Britain's first comedy series with predominantly black performers. His formative years were in working men's clubs.
Tiswas
He co-hosted the children's programme Tiswas from 1978 until 1981, and subsequently performed and wrote for the show Three of a Kind, with comedians Tracey Ullman and David Copperfield. Around this time, he met his future wife, Dawn French, who encouraged him to move over to the fledgling alternative comedy scene, where he established a career as a stand-up comedy performer and character comedian.
Henry's television work started principally with his own self-titled show, which has appeared in variant forms ever since.
In the early 1990s, Henry was lured to Hollywood to star in the film True Identity, and starred in a BBC drama along side Robbie Coltrane called Alive and Kicking.
Henry is perhaps best known to modern audiences as the choleric chef Gareth Blackstock from the 1990s television comedy series Chef!, or from his 1999 straight-acting lead role in the BBC drama Hope And Glory.
In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the fifty funniest acts in British comedy.
Comic Relief
Henry is also one of the celebrities most associated with the British Comic Relief charity organisation, along with his wife, well-known comedienne Dawn French, and Griff Rhys Jones, and has hosted the show and also presented filmed reports from overseas on the work of the charity. He was the voice of the British speaking clock for two weeks in aid of Comic Relief.
