by Lenny Henry
Each episode began with an animation telling the story of a street busker making it big in show business. The theme tune was catchy and tuneful, sung by Carl Wayne, formerly of the Move. The way he sang it made you want to audition immediately. I was a fan of the show before I was asked to appear. They’d already discovered people like Victoria Wood, and she was quality, so I was ready to go. I began to generate three-minute bits that were clean, that I could use to audition for New Faces, that were suitable for pre-watershed television. The three-minute module was a lucky charm for me in those early days. I’d found a formula that worked and stuck to it. Afterwards, it became a bit of a noose; most top-line performers did longer than three minutes.
But Mike had other ideas. He suggested a Frank Spencer gag about suntan lotion, something I would never have done normally: ‘I put on some Ambre Solaire and I can’t get it off now.’ I practised the line over and over. It got a huge laugh, but I didn’t know why. Stupid naivety. This type of joke was the kind of thing that Charlie Williams did. Anything to do with race or colour that was self-deprecating was a way of reeling in the mainstream audience. I wasn’t one of the trouble-makers; I was a friend. So I carried on listening to Mike Yarwood and collecting jokes off other comedians. I was as raw as raw could be. I had no idea that I was unique, a fifteen-year-old child of Jamaican heritage who could impersonate white people off the telly.
Luckily for me, someone from New Faces wrote to Mike and told him that they would be very interested to see this young black impressionist from Dudley. They gave him a date and time for an audition, and that was that. I was in. I couldn’t tell my mother, though, because that would have placed a massive obstacle in my way. She would have forbidden me to go due to the fact that the auditions took place on a Friday during school hours.
I kept honing the material in the clubs, and by the time of the audition I was more than ready. I knew what I had to do, how to time it and how to finish. Mike had an idea about how I should look on stage and took me shopping in Austin Reed in Dudley: green checked jacket, patterned shirt, baggy-ish trousers with a high waistband, loafers.
I don’t really have a memory of being nervous on audition day. Mike picked me up, we drove to Birmingham in his Jensen Interceptor, and some thirty minutes later we pulled up outside a scruffy club in a side street. Obviously, in the evening, with the neon lights and the velvet rope and the smartly dressed bouncers, this place was the number-one local spot for cabaret, music, dancing, a chicken-in-the-basket supper and then a snog in the minicab on the way home. But like most clubs, in the daytime it left a lot to be desired. As we made our way through the foyer, over the sticky carpet, you could smell the stale BO, cigarettes and, as we approached the main auditorium, the urine-soaked gents’ toilets.
It was perfect for auditions, though. There was an expanse of stage, with plenty of room off to the sides for the numerous acts to warm up and prepare. There was a large auditorium capable of holding up to 800 audience members. The kitchen prepared various meals in a basket for the auditionees. And here I was, with Mike, ready to show these associate producers what I could do.
The panel of judges sat at the front, near the stage. All they would say was, ‘NEXT!’ Brutal.
This was where I became transfixed and enthralled by the world of show business. This was a place of girl and boy singers, comedy double acts, guitar vocalists, a cappella groups, show bands, contortionists, fire-eaters, comedians, singing dogs, gymnasts and drag acts. I loved it. This was where I wanted to be for the rest of my life – or so I thought.
The day was nerve-wracking. The judges were being very particular about what they wanted in the show. There had already been a black comic who started telling a joke, and before he even reached the punchline … ‘NEXT!’ There was a comedy show band. The lead singer was an impressionist very much in the Russ Abbot style, and I thought he was funny (particularly his Columbo), but … ‘NEXT!’
This went on all day, but I didn’t care. I was learning so much about performance, confidence, poise and stature. These performers really knew how to take it to the stage; somehow it didn’t matter what the judges thought. I loved the way everyone had practised what they were going to do to the point of boredom. It worked against them sometimes. Some acts perform as though their show is the least interesting thing about them. I have never been sure about this approach: if you’re not interested, why should we be? Yet Steve Martin made a living from being so laid back he was practically horizontal.
Finally, it’s 6 p.m., and at last my name gets called. I realise that I don’t have a Tommy Cooper hat, the iconic fez. Luckily, there are so many impressionists that not only am I able to borrow a proper fez, but I also have a choice of colour, from plum to scarlet to orange. I go for the scarlet one.
I get up on stage, and I’m nervous because I’ll be performing to a packed audience of performers, either waiting to do their bit or having already performed. Luckily, I had no idea how tough a pro crowd could be. I begin the audition and, at first, I’m speeding through the material – but then, time stops. I am able to just … pause in my mind before each bit, each impression. It’s the most in control I’ve ever been. I wonder where that has come from? The confidence, the zest and vigour? It’s almost as if I’ve been possessed by someone or something else. The drive to succeed. I feel strangely unassailable up there, like it is meant to be. What a glorious feeling.
I pour everything into the first three minutes. There are laughs and rounds of applause. I continue – no one says, ‘NEXT!’ Six minutes, seven, eight … I’m running out of material and the laughs keep coming and no one is saying, ‘NEXT!’ In the end I just bow, and the audience stand up, clap their hands and cheer.
Absolutely, no shadow of a doubt, this is one of the most brilliant moments of my life. But even faced with a standing ovation and a cheering crowd, I am so scared and worried about whether I’ve done well or not that in my mind the whole thing has just slid by in an instant. As I descend the stairs away from the stage, a group of theatrical agents, wannabe managers and rapscallions run down to congratulate me:
‘That was great, kid.’
‘How old am ya again?’
‘Take my card and give me a ring.’
‘I think I know how to turn you into a star.’
I look out for Mike, who is barging his way through all these johnny-come-latelys and taking control of the situation. He accepts the proffered cards and yells, ‘If any pillock here wants to book my client, Lenny Henry, they’ll have to go through me!’
Then, as if by magic, we are back in the car with big stupid smiles on our faces, on our way home to Dudley.
Audition done and dusted.
Who Am I #4
I love this picture. I’m mid-act on New Faces. I’m wearing clothes from Bird Cage Walk in Dudley, all chosen by Mike Hollis. The bow tie doesn’t quite work with the shirt, but it doesn’t seem to matter. You can tell by my eyes that I’m completely involved in, and focused on, what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m doing Windsor Davies from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum here. Now, all I can think is, ‘Christ, I was such a kid! What did I think I was doing?’ (Shutterstock)
BUT BACK HOME …
Mike dropped me off outside my house and zoomed off. He had seen my mother’s silhouette in the front window and didn’t want to deal with her. I got to the door, full of confidence and joy, all of which leaked away as soon as I saw her face. This was a ‘Len about to get knocked through a brick wall’ moment.
Mama opens the front door. Looks at her watch. Glares at me. Says, ‘Where you bin?’
Me: ‘Audition.’
Mama: ‘Which audition?’
Me: ‘For New Faces – in Birmingham.’
Mama: ‘On a school day? You mad? In your Sunday School clothes!’
Me: ‘I got through. I’m gonna be on telly!’
A pause as she takes it all in.
Mama: ‘Humph. What you do down there?’
Me: ‘Impres
sions.’
Mama: ‘Do it for me now.’
Me: ‘What?’
Mama: ‘If you wan’ come in the house and eat your dinner tonight, you do this audition for me right now!’
So I did:
(as Tommy Cooper, red fez on head) ‘I went to the doctor the other day. He said, “Take off all your clothes and stand by the window.” I said, “Why?” He said, “I can’t stand my neighbours.”’
(with floppy hands and dour face – Max Bygraves) ‘Here’s a funny story. I went to the dentist. He said, “Say ahhhh.” I said, “Why?” He said, “My dog died this morning.”’
(with Groucho Marx moustache, eyebrows and glasses) ‘I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury!’
(as Frank Spencer, wearing the beret) ‘I had a ploughman’s lunch the other day. He was furious.’
Mama and my brothers and sisters behind her were all applauding! This was almost better than the audition. My family had reacted positively to something they hadn’t seen before – me doing impressions. It was sweet.
I was genuinely surprised by their reaction. This was something that previously I’d done only for people who knew me: Greg, Mac, Tom and the rest of the lads; the people down the park; the punters in the Queen Mary Ballroom and at the Trapper’s Bar. But never for my family. The secret was out now. I wasn’t just some lanky, goofy kid from the Buffery; suddenly, they saw that I might just possibly have a career in show business.
Who Am I #5
Brian Moody, an excellent photographer, came up to Dudley in 1974 to get pictures of this kid who’d just auditioned and won a place on New Faces. My favourite shot is this one of myself, Mama, my Auntie Pearl and the kids – Paul, Sharon (in a very nice Sunday School dress), Auntie Pearl’s son, Adrian, and Kay’s son, Justin. I’m in big Oxford bags, tank top and round-collared shirt. Mama and Auntie Pearl are wearing Blaxploitation-style Afro wigs. Mama looks happy. So does Auntie Pearl. Though I look happy, I think I’m realising that the appearance on New Faces has implications not just for myself, but for my family too.
With Danny and the Human Zoo, I understood that elements of my life would be appropriated for the film (it is a fictionalised representation of the first two years of my career), which is fine if you have no family. But when you’re writing about yourself at age fifteen, you have to remember that you’re also writing about your family members. After Danny and the Human Zoo was aired, all of my siblings were hassled by the press on their doorsteps, walking from the shops and even by letters slid under the door. This picture reminds me of a time when I was slowly realising what fame could mean: not just an invasion of my privacy, but of everybody else’s too. (Brian Moody)
THE APPRENTICESHIP
I knew things had changed after the audition. When people found out about it, they insisted that I get up and perform. Even our English teacher and form master, Ron ‘Bomber’ Nash, who had previously ignored me for most of my school career, told me during a careers consultation that since I was going to be in show business, I didn’t have to worry about my future – which I thought was irresponsible. What if it didn’t work out? What if I got kicked out of show business before I’d even begun? It would be his fault if forty years later I was staggering around Dudley High Street in my pyjamas, rummaging through the bins round the back of Greggs.
I was asked to perform in the school concert. I didn’t even know they had one. Suddenly, at the age of fifteen, I was allowed to do two fifteen-minute sets and compère the whole thing. I was over the moon – my journey had been legitimised by Blue Coat secondary modern! The Express and Star even came to the school and took pictures of me entertaining my classmates. The concert went pretty well, considering I’d never compèred before. I remember having a great time and soaking up the laughter and applause as if they were oxygen. Why hadn’t I done this before? Performing was life-affirming, a clear sign from the gods that there was a future for me that did not involve learning about welding or metalwork or carpentry and such. I was almost free. But not quite: there was a time lag between the auditions and the actual recording of my appearance on New Faces. They made me wait till I was sixteen.
I left school with seven CSEs, which was the equivalent of a fireguard made of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. So, while waiting to reach the age when I could appear on television, I took the entrance exam for Dudley Technical College and, surprisingly, did really well. However, I chose instead to go to West Bromwich Technical College, because that was where most of my school chums were going. Also, by attending classes there I was entitled to an apprenticeship at British Federal Welders, which was an enormous factory complex about five minutes from Dudley Zoo. It sat on about three acres and was smokey, dark and testosterone-laden, with blokes in overalls everywhere. Female employees seemed to work only in the offices or canteen.
I received a six-week induction at the factory. I made friends with Derek, who became my mentor throughout the apprenticeship process. In the space of six weeks he tutored me on assembling a spot-welding machine from scratch. He was patient, kind and an excellent teacher. I’m pretty sure I was a hopeless student with no attention span, but by the end of the six weeks I could just about put one of those machines together.
I wore ill-fitting overalls, and like almost everyone that worked there I bunked off at various times during the day, hiding in the toilet, reading the Daily Mirror and daydreaming about being famous. I saw myself arriving at posh nightclubs, a gorgeous model on my arm, drinking champagne and eating teeny-tiny food on sticks. I liked the ridiculously big food my mother made, but I was willing to try anything. This reverie was usually interrupted by Derek banging on the bog door: ‘Oi, y’lazy bastard! Get your arse out of there and back to work!’
Factory work was gruelling and unending. I don’t know how my papa got through it every day. He worked at Bean’s Industries for over thirty years, and when he came home he rarely smiled or spoke about what had happened that day. I didn’t want to be trapped like that, and I certainly didn’t intend to stay at ‘the Federal’. But once there, we all seemed to be welded to a oneway track, our journeys apparently marked out for us. Induction, college, qualifications, and then back to the Federal for the rest of our working lives; wife, kids, mortgage, overdraft, eventual death … So I made extra sure to keep practising my impressions. Once I’d taken the leap into the world of light entertainment, I really didn’t want to go back to factory life. But I still hadn’t heard anything from the New Faces production team and was convinced that they had forgotten about me.
There were distractions at college. We were near West Bromwich Albion’s football ground and sometimes we’d sneak into the pub nearby and see some of the players relaxing after training; to be so close to these local soccer legends was amazing. There were new people to meet and appraise. The only girl on our course was called Heather. She had a perm, and even though she was our age, she seemed older and wiser than us. She was a brilliant engineer in the making; her technical-drawing skills were superb. I was in awe of her – probably the first relationship with a member of the opposite sex where I wasn’t thinking about snogging. Heather would look over my drawings and point out where my draughtsmanship had gone awry. I was extremely grateful for her help. Everyone else seemed to have it covered – and even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t tell you. They were guys, after all.
I performed the same function at college as I did over in the park or at school: whenever there was an opportunity, I would mess around, do voices, tell jokes. It was different here, though, because these guys hadn’t experienced what I’d been doing. I just threw them into the deep end. Dave and Johnny weren’t that impressed; they thought that I was just a show-off and probably hadn’t auditioned for New Faces. Cecil and Wesley were cool and had my back throughout my time at West Brom Tech.
Racism would rear its head occasionally. At college my principal tormentor was Barry Jones, who took it upon himself to remind everyone that I was a coon/nig-nog/darkie scum who stank
, etc. He’d mutter it under his breath or talk about me behind my back till I walked in the room, and then he’d stop. He’d even say things to my face on occasion. Being on the receiving end of this kind of sustained ignorance is tiresome. As usual, I tried joking my way out of it by playing to the gallery. Sometimes it worked:
(as David Bellamy, enthusiastically mispronouncing my ‘r’s) ‘Here I am at West Bwomich, just outside Bwum, and I’m cwouched down, appwoximately thwee feet from the lesser spotted Jones. Now pweviously we have noticed that this cweature is, in mywiad ways, twoubled and uneducated, but we’ve wecently come to the conclusion that he’s just a wacist pwick.’
Barry would shout at me, the guys would laugh, and then there’d be a squabble followed by a nearly-fight: all the guys and Heather would gather round, and Barry and I would square up to each other and yell in each other’s faces. Nothing ever came of it; it was just the way things were in the mid-1970s.
And then one day he called me a ‘black c*nt’.
We were in a class, wearing our overalls, toiling over the lathes. It was boring, and I was imitating Barry’s every word for the amusement of the group. Eventually, Barry lost his rag, turned on me and spat out the offending phrase. My cheeks burnt. I was really upset – I’d been called this offensive name before, but only up the football by the opposing fans, who didn’t like it that West Brom had the Three Degrees: Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regis and Brendon Batson, three black players who performed feats of magic on the pitch despite all the racist abuse people would throw at them. I admired that.
But I wasn’t them. I lashed out and caught Barry with a whopping blow to the side of his face. And unlike the heroes of the action films that I’d devoured as a kid, I didn’t pile in with a second punch because my fist was now aching like crazy. It pulsed and throbbed like I was in a Warner Bros cartoon. I could feel it swelling up, and the pain was enormous. Meanwhile, Barry had left the room, holding his face. Everyone gathered round and told me that he’d had it coming, he was a racist twat, he deserved it. But I just felt sad that I’d lashed out; there had to be a better way of settling differences. What happened to what I’d learnt at school about handling racism with humour?