Lenny Henry A Life on Screen


Lenny Henry

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Lenny Henry started off as being a comic...

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"Get up! It's time for Sunday school!"

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You'd go, "God!"

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And she'd go, "Yes, he's going to be there as well!"

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..and has transformed himself, by a lot of hard work,

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into one of the most brilliant actors.

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Oh, my fair warrior!

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Oh, my dear Othello.

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And he's a man of many, many talents.

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And it's amazing how he does it.

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He makes it look so easy.

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He's tried all sorts of things.

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But unlike most people who try lots of things

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and fall flat on their face,

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the sickening thing about Lenny,

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he can actually do most of them as well.

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He actually can do just about everything.

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Are you enjoying this?

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I can think of few people in TV

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who have used their fame more brilliantly.

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I mean, in his case, for the diversity issue

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and for Comic Relief.

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Welcome to Comic Relief!

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The BAFTA Special Award goes to a man I am proud to call a friend.

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Please make some noise for Sir Lenny Henry.

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I was born in Dudley in the West Midlands in 1958.

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My parents had come over previously

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to find work and to start a new life.

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My mum came over first.

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Because my Uncle Clifton said you can earn money here,

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up to 30 shillings a week.

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There was a sense of disconnect because my dad was still in Jamaica.

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She fell in love with somebody while she was here.

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And I'm the result of that.

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So when my dad came over from Jamaica,

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negotiations had to be negotiated.

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Otherwise, things weren't going to work.

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So...

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What was amazing was my father raised me as his child.

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But I always felt weird. I always felt a bit different.

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And I always, kind of, felt odd.

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I went to the Bluecoat Secondary Modern,

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which is just up the road from our house.

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Parents nowadays do research and look at league tables

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and talk to people at Ofsted,

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and personally go around all the schools in the area

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to look at what school might be suitable for their children.

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My mum looked out the window, and said,

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"There's a school up there, that's where you're going.

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"It's got a fence around it so you can't get out."

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There were, like, over 30 children in most of the classes.

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It was quite a diverse school.

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There was a lot of racism flying around.

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It was quite tough and working-class.

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So I was a bit lost, and didn't really know

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where I fit in for quite a long time, and...

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Mr Brooks was the one, though, who recognised that I was...funny.

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I was also the, kind of, comedy jukebox.

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I was the one that entertained everybody else.

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I killed my friends with jokes.

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They thought I was hilarious.

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Anything I did, I was the guy.

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When I first started, I did Top Cat.

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Which is sort of...

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"OK, man, let's move, move, move!"

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There was Top Cat.

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"OK, Top Cat. OK, TC."

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People would poke me and I'd just come out with a voice.

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So that was my teens, really.

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That's how I got to talk to girls. I had no conversation.

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But could do Frank Spencer at the drop of a hat!

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We're going to hear the patter

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of tiny little feet.

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Oh, no, no, no, no, Betty.

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I'm not having another cat in this house.

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AS FRANK: "Hello, would you like me to buy you a drink?

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"I've got no money or anything, but I'll buy you a pony."

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You know, ridiculous.

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I got up at the Queen Mary Ballroom when I was 15.

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I wasn't supposed to be in there, but we all snuck in.

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It was just full of 14-year-olds.

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I don't know what the management thought they were doing.

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You'd probably get closed down now, wouldn't you?

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But there were all these kids in there pretending to be over 18!

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All trying to do their science homework

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before Curtis Mayfield came on, you know.

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There was a DJ there called Oscar Michael,

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and he did a talent competition every week.

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This one week, Greg and Max said,

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"Why don't you get up and do that stuff that you do? It's funny."

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And I was always a bit scared

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and worried about doing it for the general public.

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I just thought it was for us, you know?

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And they said, "Oh, get up and do Elvis."

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And Elvis was one thing I could do.

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# Warden threw a party in the county jail... #

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And I knew all the words.

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# The warden threw a party in the county jail... #

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So I got up and I did Jailhouse Rock.

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And, oh, my God...

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..for the first time,

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I saw over 100 people all looking this way, at me,

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with a spotlight on me, with a mic in my hand, sort of,

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pretending to be Elvis - "Thank you."

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# ..dancing to the Jailhouse Rock... #

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And it was somehow entertaining.

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And I just thought, "I'll have some of this! This is great!"

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MUSIC: You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate

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Enjoying yourselves, are you?

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I'll soon change that.

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A man walked into a bar.

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Oops, was an iron bar!

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# I believe in miracles

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# Where you from

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# You sexy thing? #

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I went to this club in Birmingham to do an audition.

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Bunked off school. My parents didn't know where I was.

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This was the day where I thought,

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"Oh, if this is show business, I'm in!"

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I just thought, "This is fantastic! What a great world!

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"You get to wear sparkly costumes, and you get to have props,

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"and you get to sing songs and do jokes.

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"This is a great world. I want to be in this world."

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And so when they called my name, and it was about six o'clock,

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I'd had all day to be scared.

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And I don't know what was happening.

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I think the gods just went like this...

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And it just went... And I walked on stage,

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and I put my Tommy Cooper hat on,

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and I walked up to the mic and said...

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AS TOMMY COOPER: "You may have seen some of these impressions before,

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"ladies and gentlemen, but not in colour."

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And the whole audience did this thing

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where it wasn't just a laugh,

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it was, kind of, a recognition of something.

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And it was...

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..extraordinary.

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Extraordinary moment where the stars aligned and suddenly, I had them.

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I had them there. And that was it.

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I went on television in the January of 1975.

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My life changed for ever.

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# You're a star, you're a star

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# A lame suit and a new guitar

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# And I know that you'll go far Cos you're a star... #

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OK, Paul.

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He's a really new exciting face to television. Just 16 years old.

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Enough from me - let him express himself in three minutes,

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as we bring on Mr Lenny Henry.

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APPLAUSE

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THEME MUSIC TO SOME MOTHERS DO 'AVE 'EM

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Everybody did Frank Spencer.

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And this figure with a mac and a beret, we were going,

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"Oh, no, it's going to be another Frank Spencer."

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And this very young, bony, black face turned around going,

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"Mm, Betty." And we went, "This is extraordinary!"

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We saw the Queen on Christmas Day, didn't we, my darling?

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That's my baby, Jessica, that is.

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Oh! There's a lot of people out there.

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We were in a transition

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from never seeing a black face on television

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to beginning to see people trying to break through.

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And you had to acknowledge the fact, in a way,

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which Lenny was very smart at doing,

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that this was a surprise for the audience.

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So, it's a comment about the period,

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and the fact that he had to do that to get across to the audience

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rather than, "He shouldn't have been doing that material," you know.

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AS CLIFF RICHARD: # Got myself a cryin', talkin'

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# Sleepin', walkin'

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# Living doll... #

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What was great about the New Faces thing was that,

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as a Caribbean family growing up in the UK,

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there weren't any representations of us on TV.

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So for us, it was like, you definitely watched TV

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when he was on - the whole house was watching it.

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I'm Lenny Henry, and I'm on the New Faces winners show

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a week on Saturday.

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It's time you old faces moved over

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a bit and let us new ones get in.

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Old faces?

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And I knew I was famous cos I was in Leicester

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a few weeks afterwards.

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And the bus driver stopped the traffic in the middle of the...

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"Lenny Henry! I saw you on television!

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"You were brilliant on New Faces!

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"Thank you, my son! Keep going!"

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This guy stopped traffic,

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left his bus in the middle of the street,

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got out, you know,

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all the passengers like this, going...

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"I'd really like to get to my destination.

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"But the Jamaican bus driver seems to be talking to a celebrity."

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# We wish you a merry Christmas

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# We wish you a merry Christmas... #

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I got signed up to do The Black And White Minstrel Show,

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famously because I was at the Portman Hotel with Robert Luff,

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who eventually became my manager, who was the entrepreneur

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who owned the rights to The Black And White Minstrel Show

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and they were having a philosophical conversation,

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the grown-ups, about what kind of show should Lenny do.

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And what I didn't know at the time, and I know this now,

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is that the Race Relations Board had been giving Robert Luff stick

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about The Black And White Minstrel Show.

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No matter how beautiful the costumes were,

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no matter how great the songs were, it was based on a racist premise

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and you don't employ any black people.

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It's wrong.

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I didn't know any of that.

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I just knew it was this old bloke who was talking about show business,

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and I was slightly drifting off, and looking at the sweet trolley.

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And then, 45 minutes later,

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I'd signed away my whole career

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to be in The Black And White Minstrel Show

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for the next five years.

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# We're dreaming of a white Christmas... #

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You've got no chance!

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It's very controversial, isn't it?

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Because the whole business of, you know,

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people blacking up or whatever.

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But I mean, Lenny would have thought very carefully

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about what he wanted to do.

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I could have said, "No, I'm not going to do it."

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But there was a childlike element in me that just thought,

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"If I don't do what I'm told, I'll get in trouble,

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"and they'll take show business away!"

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So...

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"They'll take all of show business away if I say no to this!"

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So basically, I said yes, cos I was scared.

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MUSIC: London Calling by The Clash

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Then Michael Grade, in 1976, must have seen me,

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because he asked me to come to London,

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to London Weekend Television studios.

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I'd seen him on New Faces, but more importantly,

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I'd seen him on stage when, believe it or not,

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he was in The Black And White Minstrel Show's stage show.

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He sat me down

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and he said, "Watch this."

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And for half an hour, we watched this show called Good Times.

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# Good times

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-# Any time you meet a payment

-Good times

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-# Any time you meet a friend

-Good times... #

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It was extremely funny.

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It wasn't about race.

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It was about an ordinary family, having the same problems

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that a white, working-class, blue-collar family would be having.

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Hey, Junior, what you doing home so early?

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-It ain't but eight o'clock.

-It was a bad scene, man.

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I knocked on the girl's door.

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Her father answered the door,

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smelled the mouthwash on my breath...

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..saw the gleam in my eye...

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..and slammed the door right in my face.

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And Michael Grade said, "Would you like to play the eldest son

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"in a British version of this?"

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And so I saw this fantastic episode of Good Times

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and went, "Yeah."

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Hello, gorgeous people.

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Pretty sister. Lovely mother. Handsome father.

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Get your wallet out, Samuel.

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That's a real, "Could you lend me a couple of quid?" greeting

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if ever I heard one!

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I know. Forget it, sonny.

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My wallet is so empty, boy, it would make a mugger cry.

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Dad, Mum,

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how could you even think I had anything on my mind

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other than pure niceness?

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And we got a fantastic cast.

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Everybody said we wouldn't be able to cast it.

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Carmen Munroe and Norman Beaton, who became a big star in Desmond's.

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Norman Beaton was brilliant.

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And Norman Beaton taught me as much about acting as anybody.

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And Lenny was wonderful in it.

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I mean, if he'd said no,

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the show would never have happened cos I couldn't imagine

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how else we would have cast the lead character.

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Hello!

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This is the Casanova of the Caribbean.

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Otherwise known as Dial-a-Thrill.

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Speak first, it's your tuppence that...

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What? Who?

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McDonald who? Oh, at the chip shop.

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We could have been any family, really.

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But the fact we were a black family

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made us different to everything else.

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So for two years, it did very well.

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I was in a, kind of, a weird place as a performer,

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doing the clubs and panto, and stuff,

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and then Chris Tarrant came to see me in Great Yarmouth,

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at the behest of Frank Carson.

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AS CARSON: "You should go and see Lenny. He's funny."

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There's a young black guy.

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That black guy who did New Faces, Lenny Henry.

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I went, "Oh, where is he?" He said, "He's down in Yarmouth."

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I went to see him. The only thing I remember, really,

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apart from him being just a big amiable guy,

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was that his flies burst onstage.

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I was improvising and messing around,

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cos I didn't have enough material, really.

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But I was messing around a lot.

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And Tarrant was in that night.

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I remember in the dressing room afterwards, we were chatting,

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and he said, "That's not supposed to happen."

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I said, "I thought that was part of the act. It's very clever."

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He said, "No, that's the first time it's happened.

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"Hope it never happens again!"

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And afterwards he said, "I don't know what you're doing in this show,

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"but that was pretty funny - do you want to be in Tiswas?"

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# Saturday, Saturday

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# Saturday is Tiswas day... #

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What I thought he wanted from me was,

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AS FRANK SPENCER: "Hello, Betty!" AS COOPER: "Thank you very much."

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I thought he wanted me to do my act every week. But he didn't.

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Thank you very much. I was driving past a farmhouse the other day,

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and I saw the farm on the doorstep.

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I said, "Hey! Six of your hens have just stopped laying."

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He said, "How do you know?

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I said, "I've just run them over!"

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At the end of the very first series of Tiswas, we almost got rid of him.

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We loved him - as a guy, he was brilliant,

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brilliant fun, and we all looked after him as one of our gang.

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But he then came up with this...

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He said, "I think I'd like to do David Bellamy",

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and we're going, "But, you know, David Bellamy's sort of big,

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"and old and has got a beard.

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"You're young and black look nothing like him."

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He said, "No, but I could do the voice and whatever."

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And that kind of changed everything.

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AS BELLAMY: Well, it's really wonderful to be back here

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-on Compost Corner..

-Compost Corner!

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..with my wonderful friend, pig manure.

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Now, what you need to do...

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You found a thing to talk about every week

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and you found a way to get jokes in.

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And that meant you weren't doing your act all the time.

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And that, kind of, saved my life.

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Because it was live and it was very much made up, you know,

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on the back of a beer mat,

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he thrived on it.

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And he enjoyed... He was able to do anything.

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It meant I could improvise.

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It meant I could mess around.

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And I learned how to be on live telly,

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because I was watching Tarrant,

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who was a master of being relaxed on television.

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# Saturday is Tiswas day... #

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I suddenly had grown into this quite experienced performer.

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It was nice to be back.

0:16:350:16:36

I think I've just changed my outlook on the whole situation.

0:16:360:16:40

And there was a record called...

0:16:400:16:41

# OK Fred...

0:16:410:16:43

# Now I'm a yaga yaga... #

0:16:430:16:46

# OK Fred

0:16:460:16:48

# Now you're a yaga yaga... #

0:16:480:16:52

And I thought, "Well, I should do a Rastafarian who says 'OK...'"

0:16:520:16:56

That was, like, I mean, really basic.

0:16:560:16:58

Comedy 101.

0:16:580:17:00

# I do not want you to say OK

0:17:000:17:03

# O-O-O-K... #

0:17:030:17:06

'My dad used to take bread and condensed milk sandwiches to work.'

0:17:060:17:09

I thought, "This guy should eat bread and condensed milk sandwiches."

0:17:090:17:11

The good thing about bread and condensed milk sandwiches

0:17:110:17:14

is you can really get into the dunking.

0:17:140:17:16

Oh, that's revolting!

0:17:160:17:18

It's really great. In fact, I'm dunking for Jamaica!

0:17:180:17:22

We did a thing called This Is Your Life,

0:17:220:17:23

where I was Eamonn Andrews with a silly wig on, and...

0:17:230:17:27

Lenny Henry, you thought you were here

0:17:270:17:28

to do an unconvincing impression of a well-known newscaster

0:17:280:17:32

and get a bucket of water thrown over your head.

0:17:320:17:34

In fact, Lenny Henry, comedian catastrophic,

0:17:340:17:37

This Is Your Life.

0:17:370:17:39

"THIS IS YOUR LIFE THEME" PLAYS

0:17:390:17:43

And one week, it was my joke This Is Your Life,

0:17:430:17:45

and then my mum walked on!

0:17:450:17:47

CHEERING

0:17:470:17:49

My mum is usually wrestling a whole sheep to the ground,

0:17:550:17:58

and cooking mutton soup on a Saturday.

0:17:580:18:00

Why is she here, in a TV studio,

0:18:000:18:02

where there are people in the cage being covered in water

0:18:020:18:05

every five minutes?

0:18:050:18:06

Why is my mum here?

0:18:060:18:08

Why aren't you at bingo with Bernie?

0:18:110:18:13

He was terribly protective about his mum,

0:18:130:18:15

who was a wonderful woman,

0:18:150:18:17

who made me the best Christmas cake of my life, every Christmas.

0:18:170:18:21

95% rum, the first Christmas, 96 the second.

0:18:210:18:25

It was the most wonderful cake.

0:18:250:18:26

I just had this silly idea that I didn't think would happen.

0:18:280:18:33

And I just said, quietly to my director, I said,

0:18:330:18:35

"Wouldn't it be good if we could get the real Trevor McDonald on,

0:18:350:18:38

"the real Trevor McDoughnut?

0:18:380:18:39

Chris Tarrant, I think, is the person who called me.

0:18:390:18:41

And I thought it was great fun.

0:18:410:18:43

THEME MUSIC TO "THE PROFESSIONALS"

0:18:430:18:45

There had to be great subterfuge

0:18:470:18:49

and I remember Chris Tarrant took me around the side of the building

0:18:490:18:54

and went in through a side entrance under a blanket.

0:18:540:18:57

Now it might surprise you to hear me say

0:18:570:19:00

that that's the first time I'd ever been made to enter a building

0:19:000:19:04

under such a disguise.

0:19:040:19:06

Walked him in. Took the blanket off his head.

0:19:060:19:08

And I remember vividly putting him right beside Lenny,

0:19:080:19:11

who was doing his Trevor McDoughnut impression,

0:19:110:19:13

and just sort of tapped him on the shoulder.

0:19:130:19:15

In Oxford Street today, a suicidal Japanese fighter pilot...

0:19:160:19:20

-Len...

-Pardon?

0:19:200:19:22

Argh...!

0:19:250:19:27

He was absolutely shocked.

0:19:310:19:33

Well, good morning, Daddy.

0:19:330:19:37

There he was, next to me.

0:19:370:19:39

And it was like this homage.

0:19:390:19:41

I suddenly... It was like...

0:19:410:19:43

You know, he was my hero.

0:19:430:19:45

-You listen carefully now.

-Can I throw some water?

0:19:450:19:47

No. No water. No water.

0:19:470:19:49

It would have been rather churlish not to, I felt,

0:19:520:19:55

and unstylish and uncool.

0:19:550:19:57

So I decided to allow myself to be doused with water

0:19:570:20:01

by Lenny Henry and his friends.

0:20:010:20:02

A doctor has tied a rope around his ankles and says he's certain

0:20:020:20:06

that the man will pull through.

0:20:060:20:08

It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

0:20:100:20:14

# Stand by me... #

0:20:140:20:16

I was a fan, and he was my fan.

0:20:160:20:18

And suddenly, we were each other's fan.

0:20:180:20:20

I was responsible for helping him to buy his first car.

0:20:200:20:24

It made my day. It made my year.

0:20:260:20:29

People still talk it to this day.

0:20:290:20:31

# Yeah, it's such a thrill

0:20:310:20:34

# Yeah, he's your little Bill

0:20:340:20:37

# Please tell me who's the dad

0:20:370:20:40

# It's you, Ron, Ron, Ron

0:20:400:20:41

# No, you, John, John... #

0:20:410:20:43

Paul Jackson had seen me.

0:20:430:20:45

He was the producer of Three Of A Kind,

0:20:450:20:46

and he found me and David Copperfield from clubland

0:20:460:20:49

and Tracey Ullman from a Les Blair play,

0:20:490:20:52

and he put the three of us together.

0:20:520:20:54

# I think I know the one

0:20:540:20:57

# It's you Ron, Ron

0:20:570:20:58

# It's you Ron, Ron... #

0:20:580:21:00

Paul Jackson was brilliant,

0:21:000:21:01

cos he allowed us to be the arbiters of our own show.

0:21:010:21:06

We got to choose. It was our show. We chose the characters.

0:21:060:21:09

We chose the sketches.

0:21:090:21:10

And I said, "Well, I want to do jokes that aren't about

0:21:100:21:13

"the fact that I'm black.

0:21:130:21:15

"I want to do jokes that support who I am,

0:21:150:21:18

"where I can espouse my community and my culture

0:21:180:21:21

"without having to apologise for it all the time."

0:21:210:21:24

All the writers went, "Yeah, OK, we've got you, Len."

0:21:240:21:26

The idea of Three Of A Kind was we weren't going to do

0:21:260:21:29

anything that was specifically ethnically defined, in a way.

0:21:290:21:33

So if we wanted a policeman,

0:21:330:21:35

it didn't matter if it was Lenny, or if it was Tracey, or whatever.

0:21:350:21:38

And the fact that Lenny was a policeman in some of the sketches,

0:21:380:21:42

it wasn't that he was a black policeman.

0:21:420:21:43

He was a policeman.

0:21:430:21:45

-Any clues?

-Well, we found the body here, ma'am.

0:21:450:21:47

He had a rope around his neck, a gun by his side,

0:21:470:21:49

and he was holding a knife.

0:21:490:21:50

So what do you think?

0:21:500:21:52

I think he were poisoned.

0:21:520:21:53

For the characters, I was encouraged by Tracey Ullman, who just said,

0:21:550:21:58

"You know, base it on members of your family, base it on anybody."

0:21:580:22:02

And because she'd done a kind of Mike Leigh, Les Blair,

0:22:020:22:05

improv-type acting stuff,

0:22:050:22:08

watching her peel the layers of a character, like an onion,

0:22:080:22:12

and really getting into it,

0:22:120:22:14

it made me want to do that too.

0:22:140:22:17

Christ, Chrissy, when are you going to get a job?

0:22:170:22:21

I don't know, Angie, I don't know.

0:22:220:22:24

We've had nothing to eat for months. All we had to eat is black stuff.

0:22:240:22:28

We've had boiled black stuff, grilled black stuff,

0:22:280:22:31

black stuff pudding. black stuff in their jackets...

0:22:310:22:34

The kids are sick of it.

0:22:340:22:35

They've got black stuff coming out of their ears.

0:22:350:22:38

What kids?

0:22:380:22:40

What do you mean, what kids?

0:22:400:22:42

We've got two kids.

0:22:420:22:44

-Since when?

-Since about 12 years ago.

0:22:440:22:47

Well, that's bloody great, that is.

0:22:470:22:48

On top of everything else, I've got two kids.

0:22:480:22:50

Nobody tells me anything!

0:22:500:22:52

He would have the physicality of the character,

0:22:520:22:55

and he'd know how the character walked,

0:22:550:22:57

how the characters spoke.

0:22:570:22:59

And then I'd think,

0:22:590:23:01

"He's doing that bit, so let's try and find the style."

0:23:010:23:05

My name is Dermot Wilkins, and I'm from Brixton.

0:23:050:23:08

Hub of the universe.

0:23:080:23:10

Brixton. That well-known South London resort.

0:23:110:23:13

Well, the last resort, anyway!

0:23:130:23:16

HE CACKLES

0:23:160:23:18

Delbert came from a guy called Kev,

0:23:180:23:21

who was a dancer I spent some time with.

0:23:210:23:23

I hung out with him one day and Kev had this, kind of, weird,

0:23:230:23:28

kind of, very, sort of, nice thing going on with his voice,

0:23:280:23:35

quite camp, but, kind of, absolutely in your face

0:23:350:23:40

about everything.

0:23:400:23:41

Very vehement about the way he talked about things.

0:23:410:23:44

He'd say, "You know what I mean?" at the end of everything.

0:23:440:23:47

"You know what they mean? You get me? you understand?"

0:23:470:23:49

You're a well crucial audience, you know what I mean?

0:23:490:23:52

HE CACKLES

0:23:520:23:54

And we did Fred Dredd.

0:23:540:23:55

Good evening. When this government came into power,

0:23:550:23:58

we promised to defeat inflation.

0:23:580:24:01

# Terrible and wicked inflation

0:24:010:24:04

# Caused by the last administration

0:24:040:24:07

# An economic dour situation

0:24:070:24:10

# All around us fists are waving in the air

0:24:100:24:13

# But what do we care? #

0:24:130:24:15

He was getting political attitudes

0:24:150:24:17

that he was able to express in a comic setting,

0:24:170:24:21

and with the, kind of, buffer of a comic character.

0:24:210:24:25

It was kind of alternative-lite, if you like.

0:24:250:24:28

So it had all the appearance of alternative comedy,

0:24:280:24:31

but with none of the calories.

0:24:310:24:33

# You know it causes me distress when I read in the press

0:24:340:24:37

# The stories of nuclear destruction

0:24:370:24:40

# How it would mean a population reduction

0:24:400:24:43

# And lower my chance of seduction

0:24:430:24:47

# But I don't want a bomb on my house... #

0:24:470:24:50

It's funny. He made fun of his culture,

0:24:500:24:52

but he did it in a way that was endearing.

0:24:520:24:55

It brought a lot of attention to Caribbean culture, you know,

0:24:550:24:58

in a really positive way, even though he was taking the mick,

0:24:580:25:00

and that's clever.

0:25:000:25:02

# I been hanging around for eternity

0:25:020:25:04

# Waiting for you to turn on to me

0:25:040:25:07

# But now you're here there's no turning back

0:25:070:25:09

# Prepare yourself for a laugh attack... #

0:25:090:25:10

When I got my own show, I had no idea

0:25:100:25:12

what I was going to do on the show.

0:25:120:25:13

I just, sort of, hoped it would be a bit like Three Of A Kind,

0:25:130:25:16

but just with me.

0:25:160:25:17

You're into Dermot Wilkins

0:25:170:25:19

on the Brixton Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC.

0:25:190:25:21

-Are you feeling totally spondicious? CROWD:

-Yes!

0:25:210:25:24

Well, I'm not, because my one and only two-litre Ford Wicked

0:25:240:25:28

has been stolen.

0:25:280:25:29

Yeah, that's right,

0:25:290:25:31

Vorsprung Durch Nicked!

0:25:310:25:33

And I migrated some of my characters from Three Of A Kind,

0:25:330:25:36

but I also was allowed to do different stuff.

0:25:360:25:38

My name is Deakus.

0:25:380:25:41

I come from, um...

0:25:410:25:43

..Jamaica.

0:25:470:25:49

Deakus - "Good evening!" -

0:25:500:25:52

was based on a man called Earl.

0:25:520:25:55

We called him Early, and he was the bread man.

0:25:550:25:57

He delivered bread and Jamaican Bun, he had a van,

0:25:570:26:01

and every time he came in, he'd go "Hello, hello, hello."

0:26:010:26:05

When I first come here,

0:26:050:26:06

people told me the only way to get a job in Hengland,

0:26:060:26:09

was with the old school tie.

0:26:090:26:11

So I wore my old school tie for three years.

0:26:110:26:14

Not a damn thing happened!

0:26:140:26:15

What made it more funny for us

0:26:160:26:18

is that you knew someone in your family who was like that.

0:26:180:26:20

That was the thing.

0:26:200:26:21

So watching him was just like watching your uncle,

0:26:210:26:24

or someone who'd come round on a Sunday for dinner.

0:26:240:26:27

And you'd all, you know... He was that guy.

0:26:270:26:29

He'd draw on everything. He's like a magpie, really.

0:26:290:26:32

If he sees any influences, if he sees anything he likes,

0:26:320:26:35

he'll internalise it and it'll come out somewhere,

0:26:350:26:39

in a sketch, or when we're writing.

0:26:390:26:41

My name is Theophilus P Wildebeeste.

0:26:410:26:43

They call me that because I'm a wild beast.

0:26:430:26:46

I shed hair all over your carpet.

0:26:460:26:49

And tonight, I'm going to sing a song for all the ladies out there.

0:26:490:26:52

If you look at the first Teddy Pendergass album cover,

0:26:520:26:56

it's pretty much what Theo ended up looking like.

0:26:560:26:58

# As I lay here next to you... #

0:26:580:27:01

But the music and the talking, that was all about Barry White.

0:27:010:27:06

I've heard people say that...

0:27:080:27:10

..too much of anything is not good for you, baby...

0:27:110:27:15

"My name is Theophilus P Wildebeeste."

0:27:150:27:17

It just, kind of, was my idea of what a soul singer talked like.

0:27:170:27:21

"Take your panties off." You know, it was all of that.

0:27:210:27:23

He was... Oh, man, he was just hilarious.

0:27:230:27:26

I was creasing up with laughter. I couldn't even cope. He was funny.

0:27:260:27:29

# I want you here with me, babe

0:27:290:27:31

# I want to look into your little

0:27:310:27:34

# Greeny, bluey, pinky eyes... #

0:27:340:27:37

He came along with the look, with the voice,

0:27:370:27:41

with the mannerisms and with the general attitude.

0:27:410:27:43

It was all there. So, for me, it was a question of, well,

0:27:430:27:46

let's just carve this into some comic material, then.

0:27:460:27:50

# Sit down and I'll show you

0:27:500:27:52

# Just what to do

0:27:520:27:54

# I'll show you how much I care

0:27:540:27:57

# Tell her about the rabbit

0:27:570:27:59

I will...

0:27:590:28:00

# I used to have a rabbit

0:28:000:28:01

# But he ran away

0:28:010:28:03

# So you'll have to run your fingers through my hair... #

0:28:030:28:08

I did Michael Jackson's Thriller

0:28:080:28:10

and that was another game-changer.

0:28:100:28:11

Because who knew I could do that?

0:28:110:28:13

I had no idea I could do that.

0:28:130:28:15

# I'm getting thinner

0:28:150:28:17

# Thinner now

0:28:170:28:19

# They say I'm anorexic

0:28:190:28:21

# And that would explain why I can't eat my

0:28:210:28:23

# Dinner... #

0:28:230:28:25

The other thing is his physicality -

0:28:250:28:27

for a big man, he's incredibly pliable

0:28:270:28:30

and he's a great dancer.

0:28:300:28:32

# I'm getting shriller

0:28:320:28:35

# Shriller now

0:28:350:28:36

# These guys are really frightening

0:28:360:28:38

# And they look as if they're fans

0:28:380:28:40

# Of Aston Villa

0:28:400:28:42

# They don't really like me

0:28:420:28:44

# I wish my mum was here Don't want to grow up

0:28:440:28:47

# Grow up... #

0:28:470:28:48

In those parodies,

0:28:490:28:51

he gets the movement, he copies what they do.

0:28:510:28:55

That, I can't do it, but that Michael Jackson, dum-dum...

0:28:550:28:58

..and the hand on the crotch thing.

0:29:020:29:04

# Need a girl

0:29:040:29:06

# It ain't no use... #

0:29:060:29:08

And he just perfects that.

0:29:080:29:10

And all you need is a few of those signposts in a song,

0:29:100:29:13

for an audience to go,

0:29:130:29:14

"God, it really does look like Michael Jackson."

0:29:140:29:16

# Don't get on with humans

0:29:160:29:18

# Best friend's a chimpanzee

0:29:180:29:20

# Not just a little crazy

0:29:200:29:22

# I'm completely off my tree

0:29:220:29:25

# I'm mad, I'm mad

0:29:250:29:27

# Three bricks short of a load... #

0:29:270:29:29

We then just, kind of, mined that scene with Lenny, you know.

0:29:290:29:33

All the great black entertainers, singers, you know,

0:29:340:29:38

Prince, Tina Turner.

0:29:380:29:40

We thought, "Right, we'll just go for it. We'll just do it."

0:29:400:29:43

# When I was a little girl

0:29:430:29:46

# I had a rag doll... #

0:29:460:29:48

We did Beyonce years later.

0:29:480:29:50

I mean, even years later, we did Beyonce.

0:29:500:29:53

And he looked ridiculous.

0:29:530:29:55

# Here I am, coming out of nowhere

0:29:550:29:57

# A girl with big ass, boobs and hair

0:29:570:30:00

# Not many people knew who I was before

0:30:000:30:02

# How I got rich, baby I'm not really sure

0:30:020:30:05

# The press all seem to gang up on me

0:30:050:30:07

# All day I'm hounded by the paparazzi

0:30:070:30:09

# Trying to get shots of me sitting on the can

0:30:090:30:12

# There's even rumours that I might be a man... #

0:30:120:30:15

What was great was I was allowed to belong,

0:30:150:30:19

I was welcomed as part of a gang,

0:30:190:30:22

which was, basically, primetime BBC One,

0:30:220:30:24

and I was given the resources to do it.

0:30:240:30:27

How many times, lad.

0:30:270:30:28

You'll never earn brass down t'pit.

0:30:280:30:30

It's plays, point work and pas de deux

0:30:300:30:32

that pay bills and put food on't table.

0:30:320:30:34

Now, get on with it.

0:30:340:30:36

But coal mining's the only thing that's ever made me feel...

0:30:360:30:39

really alive.

0:30:390:30:41

Get home and get in front of that mirror.

0:30:410:30:42

I want pirouettes until tea-time.

0:30:420:30:44

Go on!

0:30:440:30:47

All these great collaborators, Robbie Coltrane, Rik Mayall...

0:30:470:30:50

-Everybody...

-Action!

0:30:500:30:52

..Nigel Planer...

0:30:540:30:55

We can't go to Paris looking like this.

0:30:550:30:57

French and Saunders. All these amazing performers.

0:31:000:31:03

HE YELLS

0:31:030:31:05

I have to admit, I'm a bit upset now.

0:31:080:31:10

And it was amazing. I loved it. I loved doing it.

0:31:100:31:14

MUSIC: Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid

0:31:140:31:17

A percentage of all the money

0:31:200:31:22

from the calls that we receive today

0:31:220:31:25

will be donated by British Telecom to a new charity

0:31:250:31:28

called Comic Relief.

0:31:280:31:30

First of all, it was this initiative that began in the Sudan,

0:31:320:31:36

Helen Fielding did a live broadcast on The Late, Late Breakfast Show.

0:31:360:31:40

The sites opened up about a year ago

0:31:400:31:43

and they're full of refugees from Ethiopia.

0:31:430:31:45

It's full of happy children, life is starting up again.

0:31:450:31:49

They're well fed. It's organised.

0:31:490:31:51

And the point is that the money does work.

0:31:510:31:53

If you send money, it achieves results.

0:31:530:31:55

It was in response to Live Aid

0:31:550:31:57

and Michael Buerk's brilliant film footage

0:31:570:32:01

of what was going on out there with the refugees,

0:32:010:32:03

and with the famine and stuff.

0:32:030:32:05

Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill overnight

0:32:050:32:09

on the plain outside Korem,

0:32:090:32:11

it lights up a biblical famine.

0:32:110:32:13

Now, in the 20th century.

0:32:130:32:15

We all wanted to do something.

0:32:160:32:19

Everybody wanted to help, but nobody knew how.

0:32:190:32:22

I got back from a trip to Ethiopia.

0:32:220:32:24

I got in touch with anyone I knew in the business and said,

0:32:240:32:27

"Let's do a show like The Secret Policeman's Ball."

0:32:270:32:30

Richard contacted us and said, "I'm doing this show,

0:32:300:32:33

"a night of comic relief, at the Shaftesbury's Theatre,

0:32:330:32:36

"come and hang out."

0:32:360:32:37

So I said, "I'll do stand-up, and I'm going to do Theo."

0:32:370:32:40

"OK, cool."

0:32:400:32:41

My name is Lenny Henry, and as you can see,

0:32:410:32:44

I've had a tragic disaster with my hair.

0:32:440:32:47

So let's do all the jokes now before it gets boring.

0:32:470:32:50

Yes, I do look like a black aircraft carrier.

0:32:500:32:52

Yes, I do look like Grace Jones.

0:32:520:32:55

Theophilus P Wildebeeste sketch with someone who turned out to be Hugh Laurie's wife.

0:33:000:33:04

Jo, tonight is your night,

0:33:040:33:06

I'm going to let you have my body. All of it.

0:33:060:33:09

Even the long, wobbly, floppy dangly bits.

0:33:090:33:11

Jo was the best person to get on stage to do Theo

0:33:130:33:17

at that particular moment in time.

0:33:170:33:18

And she was as funny as I was. She was hilarious.

0:33:180:33:21

It was very, very funny.

0:33:210:33:23

You see, Jo, these nipples are yours tonight...

0:33:230:33:25

..to do with as you will,

0:33:270:33:28

because I feel so sexy tonight.

0:33:280:33:30

'And literally the night that show was over'

0:33:300:33:34

Lenny and me were sitting round and he said,

0:33:340:33:37

"Why do we always do stuff on stage when we're really TV people?"

0:33:370:33:41

"I think it should be a night on the telly."

0:33:410:33:43

And so he was absolutely crucial.

0:33:430:33:45

In that first year, Lenny and I together, as it were,

0:33:450:33:49

wrote 150 letters.

0:33:490:33:50

Letters used to exist then.

0:33:500:33:52

And Richard was very shy and just said, you know,

0:33:520:33:55

"I'll write the letters, and you sign them."

0:33:550:33:57

So that's what we did.

0:33:570:33:58

And I'd say to Lenny,

0:33:580:33:59

"When was the last time you bumped into Jimmy Tarbuck,"

0:33:590:34:02

and then we write, "Oh, dear Jim... So and so and so..."

0:34:020:34:04

It was his enthusiasm which was absolutely key.

0:34:040:34:08

So now on BBC One,

0:34:080:34:09

here we go with eight hours of entertainment

0:34:090:34:11

as we don our red noses

0:34:110:34:13

and hand over to Comic Relief.

0:34:130:34:17

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

0:34:170:34:19

And welcome to a night of Comic Relief.

0:34:190:34:21

Yes, my name is Griff Rhys Jones.

0:34:210:34:22

And my name is Mel Smith.

0:34:220:34:24

And then he presented the show with Jonathan and Griff,

0:34:260:34:30

seven hours of almost disastrous TV.

0:34:300:34:33

Remember, whenever you laugh, ring.

0:34:360:34:39

And if you're thinking of laughing, then switch off...

0:34:390:34:42

What?

0:34:420:34:44

Whenever you laugh, ring.

0:34:440:34:45

And whenever you ring, laugh.

0:34:450:34:47

And wherever you're thinking about ringing, then laugh.

0:34:470:34:50

What do you think, Griff?

0:34:500:34:51

Forget me. I'm just doing what I'm told, all right?

0:34:530:34:56

It was incredibly chaotic.

0:34:560:34:58

Entirely unrehearsed.

0:34:580:34:59

We didn't know what quite they were going to say.

0:34:590:35:01

We were writing their script during the pre-recorded bits.

0:35:010:35:05

We're doing the plates now.

0:35:050:35:07

-Are we doing the plates now?

-We are, yeah.

0:35:070:35:09

And as we'd be talking,

0:35:090:35:12

things would come up on the autocue

0:35:120:35:14

which we had never seen before.

0:35:140:35:17

I believe we're coming live in here...

0:35:170:35:20

-Get on with it!

-Sorry!

0:35:200:35:22

I didn't know how to produce a TV show.

0:35:220:35:24

No-one had done a seven-hour one before.

0:35:240:35:27

But I think some of the optimism, enthusiasm and chaos

0:35:270:35:31

actually were quite...appealing.

0:35:310:35:35

And I...I kind of miss that now.

0:35:350:35:37

We're very slick now.

0:35:370:35:39

He was one of the greatest-ever comedian presenters.

0:35:490:35:52

There are a lot of lively presenters,

0:35:520:35:54

and there are lots of quite sorted comedians.

0:35:540:35:56

Lenny was actually able to be live, chaotic, and seriously,

0:35:560:36:00

a great comedian at the same time.

0:36:000:36:02

Does my bum look big in this?

0:36:020:36:04

-No, not at all.

-Ooh!

0:36:040:36:05

There was a fantastic moment in that first Comic Relief.

0:36:050:36:09

We were shooting links about why people should give money.

0:36:090:36:13

And we filmed with this young girl who we'd seen fetching water

0:36:130:36:19

from a well that was ten miles away.

0:36:190:36:21

You first.

0:36:210:36:22

And now a word from our sponsor.

0:36:220:36:24

And I just started to giggle, because I'd got my lines wrong.

0:36:380:36:40

And this girl started to laugh.

0:36:400:36:42

And they used that clip a lot.

0:36:420:36:44

Well, there you are.

0:36:440:36:45

THEY CHUCKLE

0:36:470:36:48

It was another image of Africa.

0:36:480:36:51

It was a way of saying, "Oh, we can equate this with Africa.

0:36:510:36:55

"We don't have to equate the emaciated child all the time."

0:36:550:36:59

What it comes down to is this.

0:36:590:37:01

To immunise Mohammed against the six preventable diseases costs just 50p.

0:37:010:37:05

50p.

0:37:050:37:06

One of the things he's also done is spoken from his heart after films

0:37:060:37:09

and put the script aside and said, you know, just as human to human,

0:37:090:37:13

"Surely there's something, you know, you want to do now?"

0:37:130:37:17

What we do know is this -

0:37:170:37:18

if this was happening to a neighbour of yours, you'd bust a gut to help.

0:37:180:37:22

If you knew somebody, you know, on your doorstep,

0:37:220:37:24

who'd walked 11 days cos they were starving

0:37:240:37:26

and they needed a quid for food,

0:37:260:37:28

you'd say, "Have a bloody quid," you know?

0:37:280:37:30

"Actually, here, have five."

0:37:300:37:32

The point is, forget geography.

0:37:320:37:34

These ARE your neighbours.

0:37:340:37:36

This IS your doorstep.

0:37:360:37:38

Please help.

0:37:380:37:40

Lenny was always sincere and honest in his reactions.

0:37:400:37:46

Kibera was a properly steep learning curve for me.

0:37:520:37:56

Lenny will be sharing his new home with a family of five orphans.

0:37:560:38:00

I spent one night in a horrible room

0:38:000:38:04

that was airless, that was next to three toilets

0:38:040:38:08

with an open sewer running down the middle.

0:38:080:38:10

It was really tough.

0:38:100:38:12

And I don't really know how we survived it.

0:38:120:38:15

It literally changed my life.

0:38:150:38:16

It changed my... I cried on telly. I've never cried on telly before.

0:38:160:38:19

HE SOBS

0:38:190:38:22

Oh, Jesus Christ!

0:38:220:38:24

He never feels he's doing enough

0:38:290:38:32

and he's always trying to go at it with truth.

0:38:320:38:34

So the... In the slums thing,

0:38:340:38:37

he just decided he would really try and experience life for real.

0:38:370:38:41

And the rawness of his emotions there,

0:38:410:38:43

and the sense that he still wasn't prepared for it...

0:38:430:38:45

He wasn't prepared for the conditions the kids were in.

0:38:450:38:48

He wasn't prepared to leave

0:38:480:38:49

this kid, Bernard, and his family all alone.

0:38:490:38:51

I wanted those kids out of that house now.

0:38:510:38:54

I was prepared to stop the documentary

0:38:540:38:56

and do something about it.

0:38:560:38:57

It was the first time that's ever happened.

0:38:570:38:59

Usually I'd have been, "Come on, we've got to keep filming,"

0:38:590:39:02

but I just thought, "This isn't right.

0:39:020:39:04

"We've got to do something." And so we did something.

0:39:040:39:06

So you're talking about buying a house, a small house.

0:39:060:39:09

-Yes.

-That they could live in. That's £1,200.

0:39:090:39:12

I can do that.

0:39:120:39:13

-This is your new home.

-This is our new home? Wow!

0:39:140:39:17

This is your home now. This is where you're going to sleep.

0:39:170:39:20

For me, it's a change in my life.

0:39:200:39:23

That's good.

0:39:230:39:24

We couldn't have done Comic Relief initially without Lenny,

0:39:240:39:27

and he's been responsible for many of the best serious moments

0:39:270:39:33

in our long enterprise.

0:39:330:39:35

When somebody from our industry makes a connection like that,

0:39:350:39:40

it's important to keep it going,

0:39:400:39:43

and it's not just a thing for five minutes

0:39:430:39:45

while you're on the telly -

0:39:450:39:46

it's something that'll stick with you for your whole life.

0:39:460:39:49

BOTH: Let the noses blow!

0:39:520:39:55

With Len, it's a sort of continuum.

0:39:570:40:00

I've been here for 27 years.

0:40:000:40:02

From the very first moment of putting a pie in someone's face,

0:40:020:40:05

to the extraordinary moment of him saying "We've reached a billion".

0:40:050:40:08

The total raised by Comic Relief and Sport Relief

0:40:080:40:11

since we first started is...

0:40:110:40:14

over £1 billion!

0:40:140:40:17

We announced £1 billion on this stage.

0:40:190:40:21

And that was...

0:40:210:40:23

Still, unbelievable, really.

0:40:230:40:25

Since 1988, over £1 billion has been raised.

0:40:250:40:28

It's an extraordinary achievement.

0:40:280:40:31

It's a billion

0:40:310:40:32

and that sort of money can really make a difference

0:40:320:40:37

to real people, to people.

0:40:370:40:39

This was a brilliant thing that the public have done

0:40:430:40:47

and I was just honoured and privileged to be a part of it.

0:40:470:40:49

# What I did for love... #

0:40:490:40:53

# Hollywood

0:41:010:41:04

# Hollywood swinging... #

0:41:040:41:06

Disney had this film that Eddie Murphy had sort of passed on

0:41:090:41:11

and they figured, "Who can we get that's cheaper than Eddie Murphy?

0:41:110:41:14

"Get that English guy who does all the voices."

0:41:140:41:17

And they got me to do it.

0:41:170:41:18

And suddenly I'm in America, sort of,

0:41:180:41:22

desperately trying to lose weight

0:41:220:41:23

and having this script that wasn't very good but thinking,

0:41:230:41:26

"I'm in a film! I'm in a film in America! Arrrrrgh!"

0:41:260:41:29

# Hollywood

0:41:290:41:32

# Hollywood swinging... #

0:41:320:41:34

And how weird is this - I'm playing a film

0:41:340:41:37

where I'm a white guy for most of the film.

0:41:370:41:39

So it's like shades of the Minstrels again!

0:41:390:41:41

I've gone from people blacking up to me whiting up!

0:41:410:41:44

What the hell is that, God?

0:41:440:41:46

Thanks a lot!

0:41:460:41:47

All right? You can open your eyes now.

0:41:500:41:52

Keep an open mind...

0:41:520:41:53

HE SCREAMS

0:41:530:41:55

You made me into a white guy? I can't believe this.

0:41:550:41:57

What's the matter with you? I wanted to look like Prince.

0:41:570:42:00

You made me look like Wayne Newton.

0:42:000:42:02

For a brief five seconds,

0:42:020:42:04

my name is above the title in a Touchstone movie.

0:42:040:42:08

And then, it was in the Indian shop, in the bargain bin,

0:42:080:42:12

before the plane touched down...

0:42:120:42:14

LAUGHING: ..when I got back.

0:42:150:42:16

I was really cross.

0:42:180:42:20

But luckily, I'd started to think about Chef while I was in LA,

0:42:200:42:25

cos I was so frustrated at the lack of control over there.

0:42:250:42:28

And my family were sending me magazines from, you know,

0:42:280:42:32

the Observer Magazine, Times Magazine

0:42:320:42:34

and I was reading about all these superstar chefs,

0:42:340:42:36

behaving outrageously.

0:42:360:42:38

I thought, "There's something in this",

0:42:380:42:40

and I formed a production company called Crucial Films.

0:42:400:42:42

-Well, I think...

-And we started to develop Chef,

0:42:420:42:45

and many other things.

0:42:450:42:47

Do you any idea of how many highly skilled man hours,

0:42:470:42:50

over a three-day period, have gone into producing this dish

0:42:500:42:53

which has brought to your table at the zenith of its powers,

0:42:530:42:56

its taste, flavour, textures,

0:42:560:42:58

temperature at the peak of perfection,

0:42:580:43:01

and without tasting it, you call for salt?

0:43:010:43:04

Your salt, sir.

0:43:040:43:06

I hate you with a passion you can only dream of.

0:43:060:43:08

And it was difficult.

0:43:090:43:11

It was me, and I was inexperienced,

0:43:110:43:14

so it did feel a bit like me yelling at people a lot.

0:43:140:43:17

But there was a sweet spot there where I thought,

0:43:170:43:19

"This is...this is great." I loved it.

0:43:190:43:21

OK, lads, over and under. You know what to do. Go!

0:43:280:43:31

Come on! Come on!

0:43:330:43:35

'Alive And Kicking came about

0:43:350:43:37

'because I was reading the newspapers'

0:43:370:43:39

and there was this article about a football team in Glasgow,

0:43:390:43:42

and they were all recovering junkies or alcoholics or something.

0:43:420:43:47

It was an initiative run by a man called Davie Bryce,

0:43:470:43:51

who'd been a convict, and an addict, and he'd come out of jail,

0:43:510:43:56

and he wanted to get better, and recover,

0:43:560:43:59

and so he'd started this football team

0:43:590:44:02

where if you were straight...you could play.

0:44:020:44:08

I spent five years trying to keep one drug addict out of this place,

0:44:080:44:11

now you send me a whole bloody teamful!

0:44:110:44:13

Think of it as a challenge.

0:44:130:44:14

And so I played the gangster guy, and Robbie Coltrane played Liam,

0:44:150:44:19

the guy who ran the rehab centre.

0:44:190:44:22

And Robbie and I were both known for comedy,

0:44:220:44:24

and suddenly, there we were,

0:44:240:44:25

on the front of the Radio Times

0:44:250:44:27

in this very serious drama.

0:44:270:44:29

Are you enjoying this?

0:44:310:44:33

They pay you to help people like me, and so far, you've done bugger all!

0:44:330:44:36

I think were finally seeing some channelled aggression, Stevie.

0:44:360:44:40

It was fantastic, directed by a man called Robert Young,

0:44:400:44:42

who was a very good director, he directed GBH.

0:44:420:44:45

He'd say things like, "I'm not quite believing this, Len.

0:44:450:44:48

"It's a bit jokey. Try and find a way to make this more realistic."

0:44:480:44:51

And he didn't say that to Robbie, because Robbie would've chinned him.

0:44:510:44:54

Oi! You do not walk away from me, woman.

0:44:540:44:58

Get your hands off me!

0:44:580:44:59

You don't touch me, right?

0:44:590:45:01

You're like a disease, you are.

0:45:010:45:02

And you're so bleeding pure, are you?

0:45:020:45:04

Get your stuff, you're coming home with me now.

0:45:040:45:06

You really want me back with you, you get clean,

0:45:060:45:08

then I might think about it.

0:45:080:45:09

Between us, we enjoyed the thing of being regarded as proper actors,

0:45:110:45:16

and so we sort of performed out of our skins,

0:45:160:45:20

because we wanted it to be good and we wanted to honour the material.

0:45:200:45:22

Occupy my time, right.

0:45:220:45:24

I want to occupy my time running a football team -

0:45:240:45:26

no poetry, no bloody games, no stupid confessions, just this.

0:45:260:45:31

I'll see what I can do.

0:45:310:45:32

Thank you ever so bleeding much!

0:45:320:45:34

David Thompson, who produced that film,

0:45:360:45:39

because of my contribution,

0:45:390:45:41

coming up with the story and the idea,

0:45:410:45:43

gave Crucial Films a credit,

0:45:430:45:44

and I'll always be grateful to him for that,

0:45:440:45:47

because it made me start to think that I should be someone

0:45:470:45:49

who comes up with stories as well as being a performer too.

0:45:490:45:54

I just kept thinking, "There's got to be another way of doing this."

0:45:540:45:56

And acting was the way forward.

0:45:560:45:58

My mum passed away, but it was like somebody

0:46:010:46:04

had pulled the rug away from your entire world,

0:46:040:46:06

and so I was just a bit off-piste,

0:46:060:46:09

thinking, "What am I going to do?"

0:46:090:46:11

And I decided to go back to school.

0:46:110:46:13

So I did an Open University college degree.

0:46:130:46:16

And I got a BA Honours in English Literature.

0:46:160:46:18

The penultimate year of that was a year of Shakespeare,

0:46:180:46:21

which I really did not enjoy.

0:46:210:46:23

But, by the end of it,

0:46:230:46:26

I just started to develop this thing of,

0:46:260:46:29

"I know what these plays are like."

0:46:290:46:30

And I'd kind of listen to the plays -

0:46:300:46:32

I'd drive into London, listen to the first half,

0:46:320:46:35

and drive back home to Reading and listen to part two.

0:46:350:46:38

I was listening to a play a day, every day, for a year.

0:46:380:46:42

Till he unseamed him from the nave to th' chaps,

0:46:420:46:45

And fixed his head upon our battlements.

0:46:450:46:48

And suddenly, inculcated within me, was this thing of...

0:46:500:46:54

It was like Neo, in The Matrix, you know?

0:46:540:46:56

Suddenly, it was like... "I know kung fu."

0:46:560:46:59

Suddenly, I knew Shakespeare.

0:46:590:47:02

Me and Shakespeare.

0:47:020:47:03

Shakespeare?

0:47:030:47:04

You've got to be joking!

0:47:040:47:06

You see, I had this strange allergy to Shakespeare.

0:47:060:47:09

'I did a radio show called Lenny And Will'

0:47:090:47:12

about how it felt like a very middle-class, Oxbridge thing,

0:47:120:47:14

it didn't feel like my kind of thing.

0:47:140:47:17

It was always people going, "How, fee, thy foe, thy filleth."

0:47:170:47:19

You know, it always felt like that to me.

0:47:190:47:21

People with lisps, with a cabbage down their front.

0:47:210:47:23

When I met Barry Rutter, who said to me,

0:47:230:47:25

"Shakespeare's for everybody. We're both working-class lads.

0:47:250:47:29

"Shakespeare's for us as well as them."

0:47:290:47:32

And he did, "O, for a muse of fire" from Henry V.

0:47:320:47:35

He did the chorus speech for me.

0:47:350:47:36

But he did it in a broad, unadorned Northern accent.

0:47:360:47:40

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

0:47:400:47:44

The brightest heaven of invention,

0:47:440:47:47

A kingdom for a stage.

0:47:470:47:49

And he blew my socks off, and I went, "I want to do that."

0:47:490:47:54

Oh, my fair warrior!

0:47:550:47:57

Oh, my dear Othello.

0:47:570:47:59

It gives me wonder great as my content

0:48:000:48:02

To see you here before me.

0:48:020:48:03

O, my soul's joy!

0:48:030:48:04

If after every tempest come such calms...

0:48:040:48:07

We've all been offered parts in A Midsummer's Nights Dream

0:48:070:48:10

and said, "Oh, yeah, maybe I'll have a go at Bottom", all that stuff.

0:48:100:48:13

But the first Shakespeare he did was Othello.

0:48:130:48:15

To pick it up and take on

0:48:150:48:19

a gigantic, major, dramatic role like that would require,

0:48:190:48:25

I suppose, that you opened yourself up

0:48:250:48:27

and said, "How do I do this?

0:48:270:48:30

For him to, you know, be known as a comedian

0:48:300:48:32

and then, suddenly, he's Othello, everyone was like,

0:48:320:48:34

"Really? Are you having a laugh?" But he was so good.

0:48:340:48:36

And then you suddenly just go, "Actually...

0:48:360:48:38

"I'll just have to shut up, really, because he's actually quite good."

0:48:380:48:41

If more thou dost perceive, let me know more.

0:48:410:48:44

Set thy wife on to observe.

0:48:440:48:46

Leave me, Iago.

0:48:460:48:47

My lord, I take my leave.

0:48:480:48:50

'I keep thinking of, you know,

0:48:500:48:52

'myself as a 16-year-old kid, you know.'

0:48:520:48:54

Going, "Shakespeare's rubbish!"

0:48:540:48:56

HE LAUGHS

0:48:560:48:58

So to be here now is extraordinary, you know?

0:48:580:49:01

This is the National Theatre.

0:49:030:49:05

We are in the Olivier, which is the biggest arena.

0:49:050:49:08

For the last three months, I've been doing Comedy Of Errors here.

0:49:080:49:12

He that commends me to mine own content

0:49:120:49:14

Commends me to the thing I cannot get.

0:49:140:49:16

'There's going to be a global telecast'

0:49:160:49:19

and I'm going to be performing on this stage,

0:49:190:49:22

with my fellow cast members

0:49:220:49:24

to an audience of potentially thousands, maybe millions.

0:49:240:49:28

You know, he could have made a very good living the rest of his life

0:49:290:49:32

doing stand-up and sketches and a bit of this and a bit of that.

0:49:320:49:35

But he's a restless boy

0:49:350:49:37

who is always exploring his own talent,

0:49:370:49:40

the boundaries of his own talent.

0:49:400:49:42

Many people who've been through the whole university background,

0:49:420:49:46

one of the things that distinguishes them all, God bless them,

0:49:460:49:49

is they're all know-it-alls before they start.

0:49:490:49:53

And whenever I've met Lenny,

0:49:530:49:55

he's been working at learning about something.

0:49:550:49:59

He was just an actor. You know, for us,

0:50:040:50:06

he was just one of the actors.

0:50:060:50:08

But you forget that he was probably being very heavily judged.

0:50:080:50:14

But it didn't feel like that.

0:50:140:50:16

Everybody, in all my acting experiences,

0:50:180:50:21

nobody has once said,

0:50:210:50:22

-"Yeah, but you're just that

-BLEEP

-comedian."

0:50:220:50:25

They all, kind of, go, "Come on, then, let's play."

0:50:250:50:29

Which of you two did dine with me today?

0:50:300:50:35

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

0:50:350:50:38

I, gentle mistress.

0:50:400:50:41

And you not my husband?

0:50:410:50:43

No, I say nay to that.

0:50:430:50:45

And so do I. Yet she did call me so.

0:50:450:50:48

And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,

0:50:480:50:50

did call me brother.

0:50:500:50:53

What I told you then, I hope I shall have leisure to make good.

0:50:530:50:56

I felt like he was living a dream, performing.

0:50:580:51:02

Because he had...

0:51:020:51:04

He was so excited and had so much energy.

0:51:040:51:08

And it was, he was like a kid.

0:51:080:51:12

EXCITED LAUGHTER

0:51:120:51:14

I love acting. I want to be an actor.

0:51:210:51:23

So if anybody's out there, who has a job,

0:51:230:51:26

I'm on lennypleasegivemeajob.com.

0:51:260:51:30

Danny And The Human Zoo was a big thing for me.

0:51:360:51:38

The film ended up being about something real

0:51:380:51:41

but it was refracted through memory, magic realism and name-changing.

0:51:410:51:49

So I did all of those things and was able to tell my story,

0:51:490:51:52

but without it being MY story.

0:51:520:51:54

The stuff about my mum was true,

0:52:000:52:04

which was...tricky,

0:52:040:52:06

cos my family had to make a decision

0:52:060:52:09

about whether this was all right to do.

0:52:090:52:11

I think there's still things to be worked out about that.

0:52:110:52:13

You know, not everybody likes their business chatted about in public.

0:52:130:52:16

The bloke you were dancing with is the spitting image of me.

0:52:160:52:21

What are you...?

0:52:220:52:24

What are you talking about?

0:52:250:52:27

I'd known about my upbringing for a very long time

0:52:270:52:31

and I just thought it was time, you know?

0:52:310:52:33

I'm over 50.

0:52:330:52:35

If I can't say that my birth father

0:52:350:52:38

is different to the person that raised me,

0:52:380:52:40

then, you know, what good is being an adult?

0:52:400:52:42

Me fall pregnant with you in the autumn.

0:52:420:52:46

And me have to write and tell him the situation.

0:52:490:52:51

Calvin wouldn't break up his family and I didn't want that either.

0:52:530:52:58

And Kascion Franklin,

0:52:580:52:59

you've got to fall in love with that boy's face.

0:52:590:53:01

He was fantastic. He'd never done impressions before.

0:53:010:53:04

-AS TOMMY COOPER:

-Ladies and gentlemen.

0:53:040:53:06

You may have seen some of these impressions before.

0:53:060:53:09

But not in colour.

0:53:090:53:10

THEY LAUGH

0:53:100:53:12

He'd acted a lot, but he literally didn't know who Tommy Cooper was.

0:53:120:53:16

I had to...

0:53:160:53:17

AS TOMMY COOPER: I had to sit in this hotel room...

0:53:170:53:19

It was very funny - we were both in the hotel room

0:53:190:53:22

going, "Hello, Betty." "Is it like that?"

0:53:220:53:24

"No... Hello, Betty.

0:53:240:53:26

"A bit more..."

0:53:260:53:28

I said to my mum, I'm going to marry Betty from next door.

0:53:280:53:33

She said, "What about if babies come? What then?"

0:53:330:53:35

I said, "Well, we talked about it and if she lays any eggs

0:53:350:53:40

"then I'll just stamp on them."

0:53:400:53:42

We had a premiere in a cinema in Dudley.

0:53:440:53:48

People from Dudley, who were probably in that story,

0:53:480:53:52

were able to watch it unfold on a big screen

0:53:520:53:55

like they were watching On Golden Pond or something.

0:53:550:53:58

It was a...

0:53:580:53:59

That was a major moment.

0:53:590:54:01

I made a very low-budget, very lo-fi album with some friends,

0:54:090:54:14

and it became a thing, it was fantastic.

0:54:140:54:16

I made a record called The Cops Don't Know.

0:54:160:54:18

# If black lives matter

0:54:180:54:20

# Then how come the cops don't know?

0:54:200:54:24

# The cops don't know... #

0:54:260:54:29

'I wanted people to know that'

0:54:290:54:31

there was a solidarity there.

0:54:310:54:33

I'd seen the news about Trayvon and all these terrible shootings

0:54:330:54:37

and I'd read Gary Younge's reports from America

0:54:370:54:40

about all of these people being shot by the police.

0:54:400:54:42

And I wrote a song about it.

0:54:420:54:44

# If black lives matter

0:54:440:54:46

# Then how come the cops don't know?

0:54:460:54:50

# How come the cops don't know? #

0:54:530:54:56

I'm under no illusions that I can sing,

0:54:560:54:58

but I do love singing.

0:54:580:55:00

Jools Holland lets me sing with him sometimes.

0:55:000:55:03

# You got me begging

0:55:030:55:05

# You got me begging

0:55:050:55:07

# You got me begging

0:55:070:55:09

# You got me begging... #

0:55:090:55:10

Lenny Henry.

0:55:140:55:15

It's very much a fan singing.

0:55:150:55:16

And I love the blues, I've recently discovered the blues,

0:55:160:55:19

and I found that I can sing the blues.

0:55:190:55:20

# 21st century

0:55:200:55:22

# I'm just a bit confused

0:55:220:55:25

# Now you got me singing

0:55:250:55:27

# New millennium blues... #

0:55:270:55:31

# New millennium blues... # Yeah.

0:55:330:55:36

It really suits him when he sings the blues.

0:55:360:55:38

He looks great. He puts his suit on

0:55:380:55:40

and he's got the little Blues Brother thing going on. I love it.

0:55:400:55:43

I think it really, really works for him.

0:55:430:55:46

# A man walked past

0:55:460:55:48

# Just trying to stare me down

0:55:480:55:52

# And when I looked at you

0:55:560:55:58

# You would look at the ground... #

0:55:580:56:02

When he asked me to collaborate a couple of times with him

0:56:020:56:07

on his shows, I was jumping at the chance.

0:56:070:56:10

# Got my mojo working

0:56:100:56:12

# Got my mojo working

0:56:120:56:14

# Got my mojo working

0:56:140:56:16

# Got my mojo working... #

0:56:160:56:18

And after singing all night my voice was going,

0:56:180:56:20

so you could hear me going, HOARSE: # I've got my mojo... #

0:56:200:56:23

It was literally like Les Dawson.

0:56:230:56:25

# Got my mojo working

0:56:250:56:27

# Got my mojo working

0:56:270:56:29

# Got my mojo working

0:56:290:56:31

# Got my mojo working

0:56:310:56:33

# Got my mojo working. #

0:56:330:56:35

You've been fantastic. Thank you very much.

0:56:350:56:37

Goodnight, we love you.

0:56:370:56:39

It was an amazing night. And I loved it.

0:56:390:56:41

He's a very multi-talented individual.

0:56:450:56:48

And to have a career that spanned so many years, like, I mean,

0:56:480:56:55

consistently evolving into different aspects of himself -

0:56:550:56:58

that takes a lot of guts and courage.

0:56:580:57:01

And also, being really good at those things, too.

0:57:010:57:05

That's really very special.

0:57:050:57:07

Everything he touches, actually,

0:57:160:57:18

it seems that he makes a success out of it.

0:57:180:57:21

Because his heart is 100% in it.

0:57:210:57:27

-How old are you, Bernard?

-I'm 16.

0:57:270:57:28

-You're 16?

-Yeah.

-OK.

0:57:280:57:30

I'm 26.

0:57:300:57:32

I do think that his...

0:57:350:57:38

taking leadership of the diversity issue has been an amazing thing.

0:57:380:57:43

The speeches he's given, in the forums in which he's done so,

0:57:430:57:47

shows that he's really, really concerned about it.

0:57:470:57:50

If it feels like I'm banging on a bit about diversity all the time

0:57:500:57:53

it's because I believe in increasing it,

0:57:530:57:56

so that we truly reflect our fantastic nation,

0:57:560:57:59

ensuring that all those 14-year-olds out there,

0:57:590:58:01

superglued to their phones,

0:58:010:58:03

who hope to work in TV irrespective of their race, gender, sexuality,

0:58:030:58:08

class, disability,

0:58:080:58:10

can realise that ambition, as I was able to realise mine.

0:58:100:58:14

I bump into him occasionally now and the nice thing is,

0:58:140:58:16

he hasn't forgotten me.

0:58:160:58:18

And my part in his downfall!

0:58:180:58:20

No, my part in his career, which I'm very proud of.

0:58:200:58:23

AS FRANK SPENCER: Well, it wasn't a complete waste of time.

0:58:230:58:26

Some of these skills have come in quite handy!

0:58:260:58:28

He is a national treasure.

0:58:290:58:31

I know national treasure is a bit of a cliche, but he is.

0:58:310:58:34

You know, people love him.

0:58:340:58:35

And I don't know how he keeps managing to do it, to be honest.

0:58:350:58:38

People of Britain, give big phone.

0:58:380:58:41

But now... I've always wanted to say that.

0:58:410:58:43

I can't get you at the moment, I'm on the phone.

0:58:430:58:45

People respect what Lenny Henry does.

0:58:470:58:49

And they like what Lenny Henry does.

0:58:490:58:51

That's... You've scooped the pool if you can get all that.

0:58:510:58:55

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