by Lenny Henry
Clearly, he wanted to bond, but to me it felt too late. In my early teens I overnighted a few times at his bedsit. It was strangely intimate – we had to sleep in the same bed. There was a huge chamber pot that we were both required to use during the night. Then in the morning he’d put The Archers on and make breakfast, as I tidied the room and set the table. I can’t remember what we spoke about at these times. I was a mute visitor who chose to speak only when questioned directly. I imagine most questions were along the lines of ‘How’s your mother?’
The main feeling I had about the whole ‘new dad’ situation was that although Bertie was my father by blood, Winston – whether he liked it or not – was the guy who had raised me, put up with me, watched me grow through my early childhood. This new situation was interesting, but it didn’t change the infrastructure. I grew into my teens knowing I had to factor in this other person. I tried to avoid him as best I could, but he was a constant presence. I wanted to say, ‘Why are you here now? Where were you before?’ but I wasn’t brave enough.
BECOMING ADULT
After Papa’s funeral I went back to London, back to work, leaving my Dudley cares and woes behind.
I was gaining experience, though: twenty-seven episodes of The Fosters; I’d worked with Arthur Mullard and Irene Handl; I was spending time with Norman Beaton and the rest of the Fosters cast; I was hanging out with the Lockshen Gang and learning what it was to be ‘London’. My accent was adapting into a kind of mockney whenever I was there. Mind you, because I was a mimic, wherever I went I seemed to take on the accent of that place. My survival technique on the road was to blend in, fit in, h’integrate!
And it seemed to work: wherever I went, the locals thought I was from there, and that suited me. I would do anything to knock down a barrier, just to make my progress easier. It was hard enough just showing up somewhere and doing a show for one night or three days or a week; I didn’t need people picking on me because I was from the Black Country and talked funny. I wanted them to like me. Comedians are generally quite needy people. I was no different.
And that’s how I went into 1978. Papa was no longer around, and I was the family’s main breadwinner. I loved being able to help my sibs out financially with a new carpet, couch or school uniform. Although I was one of the youngest, show business had conferred adulthood on me. I was ambivalent about this: on the one hand, it was good to have the facility to be generous, but at times the responsibility was a burden.
The Fosters had gone, as LWT didn’t want it any more. But there were further commitments with the Black and White Minstrels. There was a winter season in Coventry that year. I was dreading it but had to pick up the gauntlet and get on with it. After all, this is what I had chosen to do. Four years of being in show business and I was still entrenched in the bowels of minstrelsy, but my brain was beginning to change gears. How could I get out of this? The show kept on rolling, like a huge tank grinding and crunching its way into enemy territory.
Relationships at the time were fun but short. All I remembered from growing up was people shouting at each other, stuck in a relationship that had perhaps run its course. Marriage seemed to be a snare that our parents were continually trying to escape, gnawing their feet off at the ankle – anything to get away. When I went to my white friends’ houses, I saw compromise. People tended to keep their relationship chatter tightly bound and locked away in their bedrooms, whereas in Jamaican families – and mine in particular – everybody’s business just seemed to detonate and wipe out anybody within a 200-yard radius. Jamaicans are passionate, emotional and unafraid of facing up to whatever issues are troubling them. It all spills out, whether they want it to or not.
I’m pretty sure that this – at times hostile – home environment often frightened me into being emotionally inert. I wanted the tactile side of things, but when it came to the deeper connective tissues of romantic love, I would freeze and start looking for a way out. The further I was able to get away from the influence of my parents, the more I learnt that you could be stable, faithful and true in a relationship. But in some ways this was wishful thinking. A lot of the time I’d drift into a relationship, then drift out, without even realising it.
The work was the thing back then. I didn’t have any big plans, except for a nagging feeling that my life would be so much better if only I could get out of The Black and White Minstrel Show.
Who Am I #13
This shot of me from 1978 is an example of how deeply immersed in mid-1970s light entertainment I was. Any other twenty-year-old black guy in this period could be seen in Oxford bags, tennis shoes, leather jacket, beret or leather tam, dark glasses, exotic cigarette the size of a small rolled-up carpet, clenched fist, etc. Here’s me, neatly cut hair, toothy smile, beige tuxedo, massive velvet bow tie, grinning as if to say to all the world, ‘Hey, Middle England, don’t worry, I’m as safe as safe can be!’ And I was! I just wanted to learn how to do my job and get better at it. I didn’t want to smash the oppressor or kill Whitey. I wanted to smash box-office records and buy my mama a house.
DAVID LUTON
David Luton was Mike Hollis’s driver and record-box carrier. They were as thick as thieves, and I was envious of their effortless cool. Davey was from up Oakham way and still lived with his mum, although he acted as if he didn’t. I knew something was going on when he came to see me during the 1978 summer season. I was with the Minstrels at the Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth, and he’d called up to ask if he could crash at mine. He was recovering from a doomed relationship with a nurse and needed somewhere to chill. I told him he could come and stay with me. He drove over, and it was great – here was someone I knew who was willing to help me endure my prison sentence with the Minstrels and party with me afterwards, helping me to forget what I was doing between 6.10 and 10.40 p.m. every night.
One time Davey came into the theatre with me, helping me carry freshly pressed shirts and hanging them up. We laughed a little as show time approached, and then he disappeared to give me some ‘me’ time before I hit the stage. I went on and did my twelve minutes, and when I came off stage and reached my dressing room, I opened the door to find my normally chaotic and messy dressing room completely tidied and squared away. Davey had done everything possible to make my working environment pristine.
I told him I was impressed and thankful. I also told him that what he had done was very important. I asked him if he wanted a full-time job helping me do what I had to do. He said yes, and after that he was by my side for every show, driving me to each venue, organising the dressing room, finding someone to press suits and shirts, making sure we had four-way sockets, a table, a chair. Davey sorted out the backstage rider: were there sandwiches, soft drinks, herbal and builders’ tea? Shoes polished? On-stage water, table and stool prepared? Props sorted? Throat sweets? He did everything it was possible to do backstage to make the on-stage aspect run smoothly.
Davey had a habit of speaking his mind when perhaps holding one’s counsel might have been the preferred route. We had arguments sometimes, always about hierarchy. Davey didn’t like being told what to do, but unfortunately neither of us was telepathic; someone had to take responsibility for getting us to the venue, into the dressing room, onto the stage. Sometimes the rows were about finding our way to the venue, the inadequacy of dressing rooms, forgetting shirts or socks, losing vocal warm-up tapes. But I always forgave him.
Davey was a godsend. He made each day bearable and liveable when I was on the road. There were some days when I was completely and utterly depressed by the whole thing and just wanted to disappear. Like when a renowned club owner wanted to pay me in cash or not at all, or when another owner stormed backstage because one of the dancers had torn her leg open against one of my props. No matter what I said, the manager wouldn’t back down and calm himself. But Davey managed to talk everyone down off the roof. He was good like that. He saw me at my best and my worst; he endured bad tempers, stupid behaviour, shouting, the works, and hardly ever complai
ned. However, he always stuck up for himself, fought the good fight and never backed down. Sometimes this was hard for me to deal with, but we got through, and Davey had my back in both good times and bad.
He was deeply loyal. He stayed quiet when we were at work, doing his tasks and ticking them off one by one with quiet satisfaction. He’d join in with the banter and wisecracks when he thought it was appropriate, but he was always there to help me. That’s his voice you can hear at the beginning of my stand-up shows, like Live and Unleashed and Lenny Go Home. I wanted a Dudley accent on the mic introducing the show, and boy did we get it:
LAYDEEZ ’N’ GENNELMEN, GIVE IT UP FOR LENNAY HENRAAAAAAY!
Thanks, chap. You were bostin’.
GROWTH SPURT, 1978
The Minstrels invaded Great Yarmouth. I’d never been there before and didn’t know what to expect. The show was going to be shaken up this time as there was no Don Maclean – he had gone his own way. The line-up was the ventriloquist Keith Harris, with Orville the duck and Cuddles the monkey; Sheffield-born comic Bobby Knutt, with whom I shared a dressing room; and me doing my usual second-spot comedy slot. By now I’d done roughly the same set for four years on the trot. I had fallen down a rabbit hole of complacency, laziness and fulfilling the audience’s expectations. You want a stupid, self-deprecating joke about blackness?
(wiping sweat from my brow) ‘I’m leaking …’
(tasting it) ‘It’s chocolate!’
I had loads of those, but I tried to keep them to a minimum. I couldn’t steal all of Charlie Williams’s act – my tenure as Don Maclean’s one-night-only replacement in Blackpool had taught me that. I needed new material, and fast.
Don had put me in touch with a writer he knew called Howard Imber, who lived in Grantham and churned out one-liners for Don, me and various others. Howard didn’t try to impose a personality on me or a point of view; he just wrote jokes and I would tick the ones I liked. It was a methodology I would employ until I met Kim Fuller in 1980 on Three of a Kind.
Keith Harris was in his pomp in 1978. He was a reliable act. He’d start with Cuddles the monkey, who was genuinely funny. Mums, dads and kids would wet themselves as Cuddles heckled, interfered and got in the way of whatever Keith was trying to do:
Keith: ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen …’
Cuddles: ‘I want to go wee.’
Keith: ‘What? Not now, I’m busy. Ladies and g—’
Cuddles: ‘I want to go wee – now.’
Keith: ‘You can’t. Sorry about this, ladies and gentlemen … what do you mean?’
Cuddles: ‘It’s coming out …’
Keith: ‘What? Don’t … Ladies and gentlemen, if you could just –’
Cuddles: ‘I. WANT. TO. GO. WEE.’
Keith: ‘Oh, go on then.’
Cuddles: ‘WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!’
I never understood why Keith opened with Cuddles and finished with Orville, the duck that couldn’t fly. It was cloying and got ‘aahhhs’ rather than big laughs. Still, that was his business, not mine. Keith was a proper leader when it came down to it. He saw that my props were less than below standard and helped me make some new ones – Trevor McDonald glasses and moustache combined, a Miss Piggy nose, etc. – without asking for payment; he just wanted me to represent myself on stage in the best way I could. I was gobsmacked by this act of kindness, totally floored.
Although Keith would close part one of the show with Cuddles, part two of the show was different. Keith would walk on, crack a few gags. I would walk on from the side and we would perform ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’. Every time Keith touched my back, I would open and close my mouth – instant ventriloquist’s dummy! Keith had done this before with other people, but I genuinely believed him when he said this was the best the routine had gone.
On stage with Keith I was freed from the tyranny of my act. I was proving to myself that given the material, I could get laughs doing whatever I wanted. This routine, although simple, allowed me to work off someone else and to ad-lib. I had already found that when things went wrong on stage, the audience noticed immediately and wanted the act to comment on or improvise around the situation. Keith and I were good at messing around when this happened. In one show I sneezed during the number and my nose immediately gushed blood everywhere. Keith likened the whole thing to a Sam Peckinpah movie, while I did the slow-motion spurting. It was funny for a while, but then I had to get off the stage because blood was going all over my suit.
Sharing a dressing room with Bobby Knutt was interesting. He had been in a Ken Loach film called The Price of Coal, a ground-breaking BBC1 Play for Today about northern miners who were about to go on strike and its effect on their families. Knutty had given a wonderful performance. He was also a successful comic who had honed his craft in some of the most brutal clubs in the UK. Knutty was fearless and he gave me a kick up the arse. He saw every show as an opportunity to tweak material, to try something new, to fiddle with everything. He never complained about being in the Minstrels’ show; he just did his routine and then went back to his dressing room. I took to watching him every time he performed and got a sense of what was going on when he was on the mic. He had poise and a storyteller’s calm.
Once the season began, it trundled and rumbled and rolled on. Larry Grayson was up the road doing a show, Little and Large were nearby and the legendary Frank Carson was also there with a Comedians-type stage show. There was a bar called The Gordon’s, where we’d all meet afterwards. Lots of territory-marking took place as the professional comedians took it in turns to crack gags about each other, a kind of comedy roast as you went to get your drink: ‘Alright, lad. I heard they had t’undertaker waiting for you the other night after you’d done your act.’ Generally, though, people were kind. You had the odd person who might throw in the occasional racist comment, but I tended to turn a blind eye to that. Besides, there was too much going on. Yarmouth had loads of nightclubs, discos and bars, enough nightlife to stifle even the liveliest of nihilistic urges!
Music would be a prime catalyst for me over the next few years. It was the thing that got me up in the morning, put me in the mood for the show, made my soul soar in the evenings after I’d finished. Music kept me on the straight and narrow and also pushed depression away. I was functioning and not allowing myself to be swallowed by despair.
Who Am I #14
This is me, Keith Harris and Eddie Large. I loved working with Keith; in fact, I loved working with anybody! Misery loves company … In this period I’m grabbing at the coat-tails of anyone who might lead me where I want to go. Keith, with his bubble perm, very tight trousers and slick patter, was the perfect guy for a nineteen-year-old to hang out with. He knew all the clubs, DJs and bartenders. It was like being a junior member of the Rat Pack. I don’t remember paying for anything. What I do remember is lots of drunken nights, laughing hysterically as Keith made various inanimate objects talk in different voices with different accents.
We’d do dance routines. We’d go to clubs and they’d play ‘One Nation Under a Groove’, and Keith and I would bust out a little routine that we’d practised. It involved quick flicks, turns, hand-raises and a high five. I know it sounds weird, but at the time it felt important that we could get down in sync like this. There was a certain amount of hero-worshipping going on here. I even went on holiday with Keith to Corfu. This was in 1978. I’d never been abroad before, so I took all my stage suits, props and a sheepskin coat with me. I spent the entire two weeks in Speedos, sandals and a T-shirt. Crazy days. I learnt a lot from him. And this is me in the midst of it all.
I think I was spoilt by my first pantomime appearance, working in Aladdin at Bournemouth Pavilion. This period of my life seems to have blurred, as if a small, inquisitive child has plastered sticky paint over a living-room wall, so I can’t remember the exact date; let’s just say it was late 1970s. I was the Genie of the Lamp. The difficulty of this was figuring out how I could do what the audience wanted to see. How could the genie
do impressions like Lenny would? The producer, Maurice Fournier, said, ‘It’s simple: although he’s been stuck in the lamp for centuries, what he’s been doing recently is watching 1970s television,’ which gave me permission to momentarily escape the 2D confines of the fake lamp and do a six-minute bit in the first half; then rinse and repeat in the second half.
It was a hugely enjoyable experience. A number of the people who had been in the Minstrels were also in the chorus line of Aladdin. But there was no blacking-up for the male dancers, no jokes about ‘Lenny not having to wear make-up too’. I enjoyed pantomime a lot, even though I quickly surmised that kids could smell my fear from several miles away. I had no clue how to entertain children; my act was aimed squarely at an adult audience. So I stuck to the things I’d done on television, but often the kids wanted more.
When I worked in Jack and the Beanstalk at Lewisham Town Hall, I did a routine with Keith Harris set in a custard-pie factory. The conveyor belt speeded up as we worked, so eventually we wound up with shaving foam in every crevice of our bodies. The very young audience loved the whole taboo of adults behaving like children on stage. However, I never really saw myself as a children’s entertainer. Even at the age of fifteen I wanted to make Big People laugh.