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Producer · Actor · Writer

1958-08-29 · Dudley, Worcestershire, England · Male

68 series in the catalog

Sir Lenworth George Henry (born 29 August 1958) is a British comedian, actor, presenter and writer. He gained success as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in the late 1970s and early 1980s, becoming a regular cast member of the children's entertainment show Tiswas and the sketch comedy show Three of a Kind. In 1984, he began The Lenny Henry Show, which ran until 2005 and varied between sketch show and sitcom during its run. He was the most prominent black British comedian of the late 1970s and 1980s, and much of his material served to celebrate and parody his African-Caribbean roots.

In 1985, he co-founded the charity Comic Relief with the comedy screenwriter Richard Curtis. He has appeared in numerous other TV programmes, including starring in the sitcom Chef! and hosting the talent show The Magicians. Since the 2010s, he has transitioned towards more serious acting roles on stage and screen. He appears in the Amazon Prime series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In 2006, the British public ranked Henry number 18 in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.

Henry was the chancellor of Birmingham City University. In February 2024, he announced his planned retirement from the position at the end of the 2023‍–‍24 academic year after eight years in the post.

Early life

Lenworth George Henry was born at Burton Road Hospital in Dudley, on 29 August 1958, and named after the doctor who delivered him to Winston Jervis Henry (1910–1978) and Winifred Louise Henry (1922–1998), who had emigrated to Britain from Jamaica. The fifth of seven children, Henry was the first child of the family to be born in the United Kingdom. When Henry was 10 years old, he began spending time with the man who was later revealed to be his biological father, Albert Augustus "Bertie" Green (1927–2004), another Jamaican immigrant with whom his mother had a brief relationship when she first arrived in England from their native Jamaica.

Henry attended St John's Primary School and later The Blue Coat School in Dudley, before completing his schooling at W. R. Tuson College in Preston, Lancashire.

Early career

Henry's formative years in comedy were spent in working men's clubs, where he impersonated mainly white characters, such as the Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em character Frank Spencer. His earliest television appearance was on the New Faces talent show in 1975, aged 16, which he won with impersonations of Frank Spencer, Stevie Wonder and others.

His first manager was Robert Luff, who signed him in 1975 and gave him the opportunity, between the ages of 16 and 21, to perform as a comedian as part of the Luff-produced touring stage version of The Black and White Minstrel Show. In July 2009, Lenny Henry stated he was contractually obliged to perform and regretted his part in the show, telling The Times in 2015 that his appearance on the show led to a profound "wormhole of depression", and he regretted his family not intervening.

In 1976, Henry appeared with Norman Beaton in LWT's sitcom The Fosters, Britain's first comedy series featuring a predominantly black cast. Henry also made guest appearances on television programmes including Celebrity Squares, Seaside Special and The Ronnie Corbett Show.

1980s

In 1980, Henry performed in Summer Season in Blackpool with Cannon and Ball. He has since said that "the summer season was the first time [he] felt that [his] act had received a proper response from an audience". Around the same time, he co-hosted the children's programme Tiswas from 1978 until 1981 playing such characters as Rastafarian Algernon Razzmatazz, David Bellamy and Trevor McDoughnut (a parody of Trevor McDonald), and subsequently performed in and wrote for the show Three of a Kind.

Also in 1980, he teamed up with alternative-comedy collective The Comic Strip. During his involvement with the group he met comic actress Dawn French, whom he married in 1984. She encouraged him to move over to the fledgling alternative comedy scene, where he established a career as a stand-up comedy performer and character comedian.

He introduced characters who both mocked and celebrated African Caribbean British culture, such as Brixton pirate radio disc jockey DJ Delbert Wilkins. His stand-up material, which sold well on LP, owed much to the writing abilities of Kim Fuller. During this time, he also spent three years as a DJ on BBC Radio 1, playing soul and electro tracks and introducing some of the characters that he would later popularise on television. He made a guest appearance in the final episode of The Young Ones as The Postman, in 1984.

The first series of The Lenny Henry Show appeared on the BBC in 1984. The show featured stand-up, spoofs such as his send-up of Michael Jackson's Thriller video, and many of the characters he had developed during Summer Season, including Theophilus P. Wildebeeste (based on Teddy Pendergrass) and Delbert Wilkins. A principal scriptwriter for his television and stage shows during the 1990s was Jon Canter. The Lenny Henry Show ran periodically for a further 19 years in various incarnations. Across the incarnations, he performed impressions of various American celebrities such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Tina Turner, Prince, Michael Jackson (the two men shared a date of birth), Stevie Wonder, Run-DMC, Cee Lo Green, Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes.

It was in 1985 that Henry co-founded the British Comic Relief charity organisation, and in 1988 that the first-ever Red Nose Day was celebrated. More than 150 celebrities and comedians, including Henry, took part in an evening-long BBC broadcast, which was watched by 30 million viewers and raised more than £15 million.

Prior to the 1987 general election, Henry lent his support to Red Wedge by participating in a comedy tour organised by the campaign.

In 1987, he appeared in a TV film, Coast to Coast. It was a comedy thriller with John Shea about two DJs with a shared passion for Motown music being chased across Britain. The film has a strong following, but contractual problems have prevented it from being distributed on video or DVD.

1990s

In the early 1990s, Henry starred in the Hollywood film True Identity, in which his character pretended to be a white person (using make-up, prostheses, and a wig) to avoid the mob. The film was not commercially successful. In 1991, he starred in a BBC drama alongside Robbie Coltrane called Alive and Kicking, in which he played a heroin addict, which was based on a true story.

Also in 1991, he starred as Josephus the Genie in the BBC Christmas comedy TV film Bernard and the Genie, alongside Alan Cumming and Rowan Atkinson. Moreover, Henry is perhaps best known as the choleric chef Gareth Blackstock from the 1990s television comedy series Chef!, and from his 1999 straight acting lead role in the BBC drama Hope and Glory. He was co-creator with Neil Gaiman and producer of the 1996 BBC drama serial Neverwhere.

Henry appeared as a backing singer on Kate Bush's album The Red Shoes (1993) for the song "Why Should I Love You?" on which Prince played guitar. He also performed, backed by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, at Amnesty International's Big 3-0 fund raising concert. Henry returned to the BBC to do Lenny Henry in Pieces, a character-based comedy sketch show which was followed by The Lenny Henry Show, in which he combined stand-up, character sketches and song parodies.

The Daily Mail reported in 1994 that Henry was set to star in a biographical film of Billy Strachan's life titled A Wing and a Prayer; however, the script was never turned into a film.

2000s

In 2003, Henry was listed in The Observer as one of the fifty funniest acts in British comedy. He was the voice of the British speaking clock for two weeks in March 2003 in aid of Comic Relief.

Henry voiced Dre Head, the "shrunken head" on the Knight Bus, in the 2004 Alfonso Cuarón movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and read the audiobook version of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. He also voiced Sporty on…