Ленни Генри: от комика до актера и общественного деятеля

British stand up comedian and actor

Sir Lenworth George Henry (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and writer. 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. 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 202324 academic year after 8 years in the post.

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 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.

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 in the Christmas comedy Bernard and the Genie alongside Alan Cumming and Rowan Atkinson. Henry is known as the choleric chef Gareth Blackstock from the 1990s television comedy series Chef!, or 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. In 1994, The Daily Mail reported 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 movie. Peter Frost, a journalist for the Morning Star, believes that Strachan's communist beliefs were somewhat responsible for the movie not being created.

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 the children's show Little Robots. Henry appeared in advertisements for butter products in New Zealand, commissioned by the company now known as Fonterra, as well as portraying Saint Peter in the Virgin Mobile advertising campaign in South Africa. In the UK, he used his character of Theophilus P. Wildebeeste to advertise Alpen muesli, and promoted the non alcoholic lager, Kaliber. In June 2000, for a BBC documentary, he sailed a trimaran from Plymouth to Antigua with yachtsman Tony Bullimore. In 2005, he appeared in Birmingham, as an act for Jasper Carrott's Rock with Laughter. He appeared alongside performers such as Bill Bailey, Jasper Carrott, Bonnie Tyler, Bobby Davro and the Lord of the Dance troupe. In 2006, Henry starred in the BBC programme Berry's Way. On 16 March 2007, Henry made a cameo appearance as himself in a sketch with Catherine Tate, who appeared in the guise of her character Geordie Georgie from The Catherine Tate Show. The sketch was made for the BBC Red Nose Day fundraising programme of 2007. On 16 June 2007, Lenny appeared with Chris Tarrant and Sally James to present a 25th Anniversary episode of Tiswas. The show lasted 90 minutes and featured celebrities discussing their enjoyment of Tiswas as children, as well as appearances from kids and people who had appeared on the original show. In the summer of 2007, he presented Lenny's Britain, a comedy documentary tour made with the Open University on BBC One on Tuesday nights. In late 2007, he hosted a stand up comedy tour of the UK. In early 2008, Henry's series lennyhenry. tv was broadcast on BBC One. The programme has an accompanying website of the same name and broadcasts strange, weird and generally amusing online videos and CCTV clips. He starred in the Radio 4 show Rudy's Rare Records. On 31 December 2008 and 1 January 2009, he appeared on Jools Holland's Hootenanny on BBC Two, singing part of the song Mercy along with singer Duffy. In January 2009, he appeared on the BBC's comedy show, Live at The Apollo, in which he played host for the night, introducing Andy Parsons and Ed Byrne, where he referred to Wikipedia as "Wrongopedia" for containing incorrect information about his life. In October 2009, Henry reprised his role of Deakus to feature in comedy shorts about story writing alongside Nina Wadia, Tara Palmer Tomkinson and Stephen K. Amos. He also offers his own writing tips and amusing anecdotes in the writing tips video clip on BBC raw words – story writing. He supplied the voices of both Big and Small in the BBC CBeebies children's programme Big & Small.