Lenny Henry

When Henry was ten 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.

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.

Sir Lenworth George Henry (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and writer.

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.

Henry gained success as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in the late 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in The Lenny Henry Show in 1984.

He was the most prominent black British comedian of the time and much of his material served to celebrate and parody his African-Caribbean roots.

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 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.

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.

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".

Also in 1980, he teamed up with alternative-comedy collective The Comic Strip.

While involved with the group, he met his wife, comedian Dawn French.

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 like 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.

In 1985, he co-founded the charity Comic Relief with the comedy screenwriter Richard Curtis.

He has appeared in numerous other TV programmes, including children's entertainment show Tiswas, sitcom Chef! and The Magicians for BBC One, and in his later years has transitioned toward acting roles on stage and screen.

He appears in the Amazon Prime series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Henry is the chancellor of Birmingham City University.

Recently he announced his planned retirement from the position at the end of the 2023-'24 academic year after 8 years in the post.

It was in 1985 that Henry co-founded the British Comic Relief charity organisation, and 1988 when the first-ever Red Nose Day was celebrated.

Over 150 celebrities and comedians, including Henry, took part in an evening-long BBC broadcast, which was watched by 30 million viewers and raised over £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.

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 several iconic American celebrities such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Tina Turner, Prince, Michael Jackson (both men share a birthday date), Stevie Wonder, Run-DMC, Cee Lo Green, Denzel Washington, Idris Elba and Wesley Snipes.

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.

In July 2009, Lenny Henry stated he was contractually obligated 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.