Sir Lenny Henry: Truth telling, support networks, and bad handwriting

0:01Hello and a big welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fern Cotton and today I get to catch up with Sir Lenny Henry. There are still opposing forces that are saying, what are you doing here? Or no, but where are you from from? So I think that it's a miracle that we're where we're at. Go to Birmingham, I was in Oldham yesterday. Huge influx of black and brown kids in schools everywhere you go. And in a minute, that generation is going to want to know what we did. But what did you do? What did you do to stop that? What did you do to change things? What did you do when they said we didn't belong here? What were your responses?

0:40And we're going to have to go, well, we did a bit. We did Mandela Day. Does that count? Lenny has so many strings to his bow. He's an actor, comedian, singer, TV presenter and writer. Now he's written Three Little Birds, a gorgeous TV series for ITV. Let me set the scene, right? It's 1957, post-Windrush, and amidst this booming decade alive with promise, the rhythm of rock and roll, Hollywood starlets and fabulous fashion. Three girls board a cruise ship from Jamaica bound for a new life in Blighty. It's a completely triumphant celebration of immigration, community and the strength of black womanhood.

1:22And it's inspired by the life affirming stories of Lenny's mother, some of which you'll hear in this chat, as well as all those who've travelled to make Britain their home. This work is clearly so personal for Lenny and it was a real pleasure to hear more about his own childhood. We're so grateful now for his humour, but there's a bleaker story behind why he turned to comedy. Oh, and by the way, if you like ASMR, you're going to love the beginning of this chat because Lenny was enjoying not one, but two delicious mouth-watering chocolate bars at the same time and you can really hear him loving them.

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3:33Right, here he is. Here's Lenny.

3:59So, Lenny, who's eating his chocky bar? See, this is on film, man. This is, like... I'm going to ignore the fact that you eat. You just enjoy that chocolate bar. Oh, it does look good. I'm not even supposed to be eating for them. I got my dinner later on. It's ridiculous. Oh, it's tiny. That doesn't even count. Look how small it is. It's minuscule. It's front size. It is exactly. And it's very fun. And you've got your cup of tea. We're happy. Happy days. How are you? Sir Lenny, I am really well. And I haven't seen you for so long. I can't even think when it last was. It might be comic relief. It would be a comic relief down the line.

4:42But it's so good to catch up. We've got so many things to talk about. I'd love to start talking about your wonderful new project, Three Little Birds, which I had an exclusive peak of two episodes. Great. And I loved it. I'm so sorry. This is my own fault. Well, you decided to eat chocolate by right at the start. Just before the interview, I took three bites of a Twix. And here I am. And I may die. Please don't do that. I'm not casting aspersions on Cadburys or Roundtree or whoever makes them. No, no. They're literally the most delicious thing ever. But just at this moment, I might need somebody to come and do compressions on my chest.

5:20Was it worth it is the question. No, but literally I'm eight years old again, eating far too much chocolate for my own good and enjoying it. But it's a day to celebrate. You've just been to the screening. Three Little Birds, yeah. It was absolutely glorious. It's the first time where I've seen something where all the press are there and it's lovely that they're there and there's an enjoyment. But my brain just floated off into this world of where you've done it. You know, you've told this story. It's what you wanted to do. And there it is. And it's a beautiful thing. And I can say that. I can say it's beautiful.

5:56I'm not there going, I wish I'd done this. I wish I'd done that. I'm going, that's beautiful. So whatever they say, the effort that everybody, it has been a team effort. The effort that everybody's put into Three Little Birds, the actors, the extremely diverse cast and crew, has made it into something much more than I thought it was going to be. Really? So I'm really utterly thankful and grateful to the gods for bringing it to us in this way. They've just elevated it off the page. I'm so lucky. And this has been, I mean, it's obviously something you've written and you've directed and it's something...

6:28I didn't direct it. I didn't direct it. I'm an executive producer and main writer. And it's your vision. And this story obviously has deep personal connection and is something that has been perhaps rumbling for a long time, something you've always wanted to do to tell this story. Yeah. And I think just to get it straight, I'd had a few knockbacks in terms of scripts because I've been studying writing and stuff for quite a long time. I did a BA in English literature, then I did an MA, and then I did a PhD. And I was writing stuff, but nothing really was getting away. I was a bit depressed. Familiar story for lots of writers.

7:00Didn't matter that I was Lenny Alphitelli. As a writer, I was like Johnny Newcomer. And they weren't having it. And I said to Russell T. Davis one day, at the behest of my partner, Lisa, why don't you call Russell? He's your friend. I called Russell and said, will you mentor me through this period of whatever it is that's going on? Because I just don't know. You know, it feels like I'm banging my head against a brick wall. And he said, well, what is it you want to do? And I said, I want to talk about the Windrush people. and post because my mum came over in 57 not 47 there's a like 10 year gap and my mum was really vexed that there was nobody with a camera and radio when she arrived in a sticky out frock and nice shoes and a church hat and I wanted to talk about those people because there'd been a significant shift but there hadn't really been a shift when my mum arrived there were still signs in the windows no blacks no Irish no dogs there was still overt racism there's still this patriarchal thing of the woman stays in the kitchen and when you're married that's it you never get divorced whatever he's like you stay with that guy and Rochelle who plays Leah came up with a really proper phrase for women in the 50s which was she said Leah was economically silenced which means that even though you work with your husband on on the land or the farm or you work in the factory side by side, the man controls the purse strings.

8:21And as a result, the woman feels, whether she's happy with him or not, trapped. So I just thought, yeah, this is what I want to write about. And not to get it twisted here, because my family are very litigious. This is not just my mom's story and my auntie's story. This is all of our stories. You know, I talked to Roy Williams and Kwame Kwa Amar about this stuff a lot. And we always kept saying, we've got to talk to her. And I put it to you, Malud. We've got to talk to our mums and dads. We've got to talk to our grands and granddads. If you've got a gran and granddad. Because they've got stories that will blow your head off and we need to get them down.

8:55Write them down and have them and go, yeah, one day I'm going to tell this story. They're important. Our kids are going to want to know. They're so important. And I don't think the generations above us had the space to really properly not only tell their stories, but also talk about the pain, the trauma, the suffering. Because they didn't have time. They would sort of trudging on and getting on with it. Did you later down the line before your mum died, sit and chat with her and get her to retell these stories? That's a really good question. And once again, I'll say that it wasn't just my mum's stories, but she did tell me stories.

9:30Just before she died, she opened up in a way that she'd never done before. And she told me all kinds of things. And it all goes into the memory bank. My auntie Pearl did the same. My stepdad did the same too. They all, it's amazing, you know, death, oncoming death, means that your brain just goes, and suddenly all this stuff comes out that you would never have said to your children before. So I was very blessed and sad to hear these stories near the end. But this set of stories isn't just about my parents. I talked to lots of people. I did lots of research. I read lots of books, listened to loads of music.

10:08That was great. and I found that there is a concurrence there's a thought process that when you leave somewhere where there's poverty and starvation you can't feed your kids there's no work to go somewhere where there's a possibility there might be work and you might be able to uplift yourself that's a resonant story you know everybody seems to relate to it whether you're black or white or brown or whatever everybody knows about leaving somewhere to go somewhere else that's better so I feel that I just had that in my heart as well as my mum's stories as well as all these stories I'd researched and heard and I thought if I can just get a tenth of this down it'll be something.

10:48How did you feel diving into those stories so deeply and to some extent seeing them come to life on film reliving them because there's racism obviously there's misogyny there's that patriarchal pressure that the three main characters are having to navigate. I think it's good as a writer, you know, this sense of imagining how the audience will feel walking in these women's shoes. And Charles McDougall, who directs the first two, says, finds men a bit boring. He likes writing, he likes directing about complex women. And I I think that to give these women a voice and to allow them to speak and to say their truths is the most important thing you can do.

11:35You know, we see them in documentaries and on Pathé News clips and we read their story, but it's like they never get a chance to talk about it. It's always some bloke talking about them. And I don't want to be that bloke. So I talk to lots of women and I talk to my mum, obviously, my auntie and everything, and I try to get their story straight so they can give voice to it on camera. And they all say, you know, Rochelle and Saffron and Yasmin, it feels like the truth because when I talk to my mum and my auntie about this, they say, yeah, that's right. And that's the only thing I could. And I cried a lot when I was writing this.

12:06I laughed a lot when I was writing this. It was it felt like it was right. And it came out of me. And those are the best things. Is there anger? Do you feel anger about what they had to endure? I mean, I don't want to talk about this like we don't see racism anymore because we know that that's a horrible lie. You know, we still see it in all areas and it's always sad to sort of sit here and go, yeah, we can't talk about this in a retrospective manner of, oh, when things were really bad with racism. It's still going on. Yeah. But to see and to hear those stories of your mum, your aunties, having to endure that, living in a totally new place, not knowing anyone, it being bloody freezing, trying to find work, trying to find your feet, and then enduring racism and misogyny on top of that.

12:51Do you feel angry? Do you feel resentment? I think I felt what was good about this and probably what wasn't good about the things I'd written before was I think that if you're writing something, as you know, there has to be something at stake what am i writing about why is this important for me to be writing this what are my feelings about this why does this get me my feelings am i feeling something and this did all of those things i was angry i was deeply deeply sad i was depressed about the oppression that my parents and my friends and my family and these people that i talked to that they'd had to go through you know you ring up and you try and get a job and then you arrive and they look at you and go, there's no job here.

13:33You know, you get spat at in the street, you know, people rubbing your skin and saying, oh, it doesn't come off. You know, all of those things that happened to my mom and everybody that talks about it. You know, kids chasing people down the street and saying, where's your tail? You know, Jamaica, what part of Africa is that? The sheer tonnage of ignorance that was going on, going around in those days was immense. And you know what? People dealt with it because they were in this new country There was work here. They couldn't make more than they were making at home. And everybody just thought, if I can just get through this bit, maybe it'll get better.

14:12And I'm sad to say that it took ages for it to get better. And in some respects, people are still waiting for it to get better. It's still difficult. There are still opposing forces that are saying, well, what are you doing here? Or, no, but where are you from from? You know, there's still those people saying that kind of thing. So I think that it's a miracle that we're where we're at. More mixed relationships. There's, you know, go to Birmingham. I was in Oldham yesterday. Huge influx of black and brown kids in schools everywhere you go. And in a minute, that generation is going to want to know what we did.

14:48Well, what did you do? What did you do to stop that? What did you do to change things? What did you do when they said we didn't belong here? What were your responses? And we're going to have to go, well, we did a bit. we did Mandela Day, does that count? We did Rocket Against Racism, does that count? I think actually our generation were quite politicised. We wanted to change the world. And I think that I'm praying that in two generations' time, maybe there's going to be a very politicised generation that goes, we're not having this anymore. We want to change the world and we want to stop people saying this and doing that.

15:23And I think we're going to get that. But at the moment, it does feel there's a slight complacency in terms of wanting to help other people. Although I have to say in terms of comic relief and children in need and stand up to cancer, there are a lot of my brothers and sisters putting in hard yards to help other people. So that's good. Yeah, in ways I think when we look at the UK specifically and with, you know, you're a founder of comic relief, you see the deep empathy and sort of kindness there is out there. But talking about the complacency, I think a lot of the time the conversation is things are still so bad in the States, but we're all right and that's clearly not the case.

16:01But, you know, there's always work to do and sometimes you can get stuck in your own bubble of this is my existence, these are my kids, this is my husband, this is my wife, this is my TV, this is my Netflix subscription. You know, we can be in a bubble and we can go, actually, this is about, I'm all right. I don't have to worry about it. But actually, sometimes I love it when people are forced to care about something. You know, you see something on the news and it just moves you despite being stuck in your bubble. And so, you know, my sister runs a food bank. She's in the church, she's a Christian, but she's 80.

16:38What's she doing running a food? She's going down there every day, sorting the food out, helping with the... She runs a food bank. You know, this is big. Yeah. For an 80-year-old woman who can only just about drive and can't really see. But the joy she'll get from it, and that's not to be reductive about, I'm sure, the hard graft she has to put in, The joy she'll get from that is, I think, the bit that we often miss, like the feel-good hormones that are released when we're helping other people and we're doing something that connects us. It's about connectivity, I guess. Yeah, I wanted to show in this show as well that there were allies.

17:11And, you know, there's a guy called Jimmy in this who's a teddy boy, but he's a kind of cool teddy boy who talks about we wouldn't exist without black people. You know, teddy boys love rock and roll, well, rock and roll was invented by black people. And there's a lovely lady who says, you come from the Commonwealth and you belong here as much as anybody else and you don't listen to them. You know, it's allies who stand by you. You know, there was a woman called Rita where I lived and she had a big book like you've got in front of you. And if you couldn't afford your groceries, she would allow you to pay off piece by piece during the week.

17:50And she had you in a book. and my mum took advantage of the book many, many times. My mum was also a caterer for an old people's home and at the end of the day, if there was shepherd's pie left, she was allowed to take it and bring it home so that we could eat it. You know, there were allies. The lady would say, go on, take that home. You've got six kids. You better take that home and give it to them. So we had a lot of that and we loved the fact that people were there who were willing to help us And I think that's whatever anybody says about this country. We are multicultural. And I think the majority of people do want to help.

18:26Yeah, I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. As well as writing for TV, you've also, I mean, you've written a ton of books already. You've done your memoirs. Two memoirs. Two memoirs. And you've got your books for young people. The Boy with Wings, Attack of the Rampaging Robots, which is another Boy with Wings book. The Book of Legends, which is kind of Lord of the Rings, but with black people. and the most recent book, the new book, is called Clash of the Super Kids and it's another Boy with Wings book. I'm fascinated by this kid, Tundi Wilkinson, who was born with superpowers but didn't know it until he was 11.

19:00And anybody listening to this interview will realise that things, when you get to 11 or 12 in our house, are usually moments of revelation. So Tundi has these wings and he's adopted and so the question is, who are my birth parents? And so he finds out that his birth parents are not of this earth and that he has superpowers and some responsibilities. And he becomes a defender of his neighborhood and also of the earth. So he's a superhero. And in this third book, he goes to London to be tested by an American scientist called Abigail Shapiro, who on the surface is incredibly nice. But she wants to.

19:41Can we get your phone, Tundee? because we don't want you just ringing your parents every day because we feel that it's kind of, you know, we're here to work. And there are other kids with superpowers. There's a tree called chlorophyll. There's a woman called Simulate who can clone your powers. There's a kid called Headspace who can actually be in your head and talk to you telepathically. There's a guy called Backflash from Doncaster who can go back in time, but only for 30 seconds because he's only 13. Please tell me you've done the audio book. Yeah, the audio book is there. And so there's all these kids being tested by Abigail Shapiro.

20:13And then at a point in the book, they realise that all is not what they seem. And it's all about these kids becoming a team in the face of great adversity and overcoming. And as you know, I like writing about that. Yes. And I like writing about kids who are askew from parenthood, who are having to defend themselves. So Tundi Wilkinson, The Boy With Wings, is all about that. and this is my homage to books like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four that I read when I was a little kid. I love those guys. And so a group of outcasts having to come together to fight a greater evil is right up my alleyway.

20:48So that's what Clash of the Superteams is all about. And I read it to some kids the other day and one of them said, is this going to be a movie? And I said, maybe. And they said, oh, wait till it's a movie. I said, no, no, no, you got to buy the book. The point is read the book. Read the book. Reading your first memoir and also watching Three Little Birds, it's clear that your mum had a huge impact on you in life. Massive. You don't even know, Fern. Massive. But I love reading the stories about her and how you describe her in your book. I can see her. It's like I'm in a room with her. I mean, I'm sure there's other details that, you know, I'm not quite getting, but I can totally visualise your mum.

21:29and that's not to say it was a perfect relationship because you talk about the complexities of your childhood. She was tough. She didn't take any mess from anybody and she would stumble up to any man and she would fight her corner and she wouldn't put up with anybody's bullshit. She would hit back my mum and I was always a bit frightened of that But as a grown-up, I see what she had to do to get her point across, to stand up for herself, to say, you don't treat me like that. You don't treat my kids like that. My mum came to – did your mum come to school? My mum went to school to argue with teachers.

22:10My mum never came to the school. But she didn't want to come to school because she had work. And if we did anything wrong, we'd get hit because we made her come from work to school. But if she had to defend us, she'd come to school and she'd cause trouble. And I loved that about her. And that's when I thought, that's my mum, that is. I was so proud. Who is the man who hit my child? And, you know, she was like that. Yeah. And it was like, what? You'd be standing there, but you'd be secretly pleased that she was there to fight your corner. Because my dad wasn't that. My dad was my stepdad. So he wasn't that interested.

22:41He didn't really. My dad never came to school. School is school. But my mum would show up if there was trouble. And I loved that about her. She wasn't. They weren't academic by any means. they were both subsistence farmers and they came to this country and worked in factories so they were kind of cut off from nature in many ways they weren't part of nature they were working in factories metal sparks from the welding machines things banging and clattering so it was a big difference to their life back home to their life here and there was all of this opposition there was overt racism people spitting at you as you walk down the street you know as i say racist taboos go back to africa you black bastard all that kind of stuff just as you walk down the street and um my brother seymour and my other brother hilton had to defend themselves regularly people would just attack you in the street when you're walking on the street can you imagine that imagine that walking down the street bang somebody hits you you're suddenly in a fight you would just go into the pub suddenly you're having a fight and um seymour just said i hated it here and i want I wanted to go home for ages because I just didn't think they wanted us here.

23:49So the overcoming is a whole thing. Yeah. And this series is about the beginning of the overcoming. So in season one, please God, we get more than one season. Oh, it has to. But in season one, you're going to see the beginning of the overcoming. And then in season two, you'll see ongoing overcoming. And then the minute you get to bam, bam, my boy, lollipop, you're going to see something. because suddenly the music, the clothes, the fashion, the cultural influence, it's all about being black or brown or Jamaican. The food, oh my God, everything changes. Suddenly the people are going, oh, I quite like this, you know.

24:26They're digging it. Chris Blackwell, they're going to be digging it. They're going to be going, my God, I didn't realise. Before, or during that overcoming, back in those years, we didn't use words like depression, anxiety, or even establish what mental health problem you might be experiencing due to, could be circumstance or something you've experienced previously. How do you think your mum was coping during that time? Do you think she was mentally challenged by it? I think most people you met were going through something. Yeah. My mum was definitely going through a lot in terms of living in Britain.

25:03I remember when her mum died in the late 60s and she cried for about three days and she didn't tell us why. So she cried for three days, got it over with, and then just carried on. And we never found out what happened in the middle. Wow. But it was clear that her mum had died, and we didn't, because we'd never met Gran, we didn't know what the deal was. I think this idea of being a Stoic is interesting, because there was a lot of Stoicism that went on in terms of what you're going through, and you didn't tell your kids ever about what was happening. So in Jamaican culture and parlance, there's this thing called big people tings.

25:38And so we'd be, you know, there was a front room in the house where you were not allowed to go as a kid. And in the front room, there was a sofa with plastic on it. There was a plastic path from the sofa to the bar where all the drinks were. It's very sensible, actually. We were never allowed to go there. There were lots of crochets and animals, pictures of Jesus, Christ as the head of this house, the unseen guest at every meal, Christ at the Last Supper, Christ just with his hands up like that with the stigmata, and lots of little macrame things everywhere. And it was only God was allowed to be in this room.

26:11If the vicar came, he wasn't allowed in there. Only big people were allowed to be in this room. And little kids were not. And I was fascinated with what do big people talk about? Come on, you're not just big people things in here, move. We're not allowed to be in the big people space. And so when they shut the door, I think in this room full of fag smoke and fried dumplings and stuff, they talked about this person being pregnant. This person has just left her husband. This husband's just gone to Cardiff and he hasn't come back. This person just lost their job and we better help them. This person's married and she's having a baby.

26:46What are we going to do? Well, we need to not tell people and we need to keep it amongst ourselves. This person needs to borrow some money because they're broke. Big people things is everything they needed to do to survive. And it wasn't about mental health. It wasn't about having a nervous breakdown. It wasn't about being depressed. It was about getting together and figuring out how do we overcome this? There was a thing called the Pardner, and it figures in the show, because in episode three, Leah realises that she's never going to be able to survive or send for her kids on the money she's being paid, even though it's much more than she would have got in Jamaica.

27:19She just won't be able to afford the boat fare for the kids to come across. And so what she does is, she says to her brother, we should have a Pardner. And a Pardner, it's a saving scheme that Caribbean people, they call it Susu in Africa, but you basically six of your seven of you get together and you put your money in they call it you throw in the money and it could be 10 of your wages and then a month later one of you draws down every month one of you draws down the whole amount that's in the partner and that way you can buy your kids clothes or you can get food or you pay your rent um the other thing you do is you have a rent party so the reason all those parties and kind of i think we invented hip-hop first time i ever saw two turntables and a microphone was a blues dance at my mum's house it was a rent party this guy showed up with this massive wardrobe size speakers two turntables and a mic and did a disco in our living room we had parties like that where you paid five bob to get in and you could pay your rent that month it was easy and mum would cook and there'd be curry goat and rice on a paper plate and there'd be rum in paper cups it was a whole thing about surviving it was a hustle yeah everybody hustled but they had no other option and I think that leads to this sense of I love the word overcoming and I don't think I've really used it enough in the context of life or mental health because often I think when we're given either a sort of a label or a diagnosis we can could potentially feel stuck in that I have this I have whatever it is overcoming there's a forward motion with that you are moving through something and it's quite solution-based as well well even today I mean, I've had my ups and my downs and I tend to think of this as leaning into the problem solving aspect of life rather than wallowing.

29:09Wallowing is very dangerous. And I think that if you can bear it, get out of the trench and start marching forward. Think about moving forward. Yeah, I've had that experience. Now I've got to move forward. I know that sounds hard, but, you know, you've got to know that you're loved. You've got to love yourself and you've got to move on. And, you know, rely on your friends. I know they hate it when you're moaning, but rely on your friends and just talk to them and tell them stuff. You know, watch Ted Lasso. That'll tell you what to do. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a thing, you know. And boys are terrible.

29:44Watch my missus on the phone. She's on the phone to her mates for an hour and a half. We're like, hello? Yeah. See you there on Monday. Click. We don't talk about anything. I know, I know. It's definitely a problem. And we know the awful stats with male mental health. We know that that needs to happen. I wonder, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because it's almost like this new wave of talking about mental health feels really healthy. And it feels like there's some progress. But you almost don't want it to tip into or lean into that too far that we concentrate so much on these diagnoses or where we're at now.

30:21And we forget to look at resilience and overcoming. and like you've just said, not feeling so wedded to things that have happened to you. You've done that. Well, it's a bit victim-y. Yes. I think that, and I love this thing of somebody was talking about sexual assault the other day and she said, well, I don't want to be a victim. I'm a survivor. I survived that and I'm moving on with my life. I survived that. Happy to talk about it. Happy to testify. But I've survived that and I've got on with my life. And I thought, wow, that's extraordinary. That's an extraordinary thing not to fall back into victimhood.

31:01Because I think you can, I think you're absolutely right. You can just go, this thing happened to me and I'll never recover. Well, your mum could have so easily done that, so easily. She had the world against her, but she still chose to be solution-led and to move into that sense of overcoming. And it was hard, though, you know. My auntie had the same thing. My auntie left five children behind and never went back to Jamaica. didn't go back to Jamaica till 30 years later and I think that now when I think about that I think a why did you have to leave Jamaica like that you had five kids b when you arrived you must have felt free but there's still recovery to be done yeah and c why did it take you 30 years to go back home.

31:48It must have been so, whatever she went through, it must have been so traumatic that she couldn't even think about going home. And my mum's there supporting her through this. So I think what I've learned is, because it can be a bit lonely, life, it's important to have support networks. It's important to have your friends, to have people you can talk to. I've got friends who you can ring them up in the middle of the night and say, I'm in terrible trouble. And they'll talk to you. They'll give you 500 quid and I'll lift to the airport. And you need friends like that. You need those ride or die people.

32:22And, you know, I mean, I don't talk to people on the bus who I don't know, but I'm very open to chatting about all sorts because I think that's what makes us. It's the ability to name it, explore it, talk about it, and then go, good, I've done that. Now I can move on. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork.

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34:43How do you think your childhood has informed who you are today? Because to fill in some of the gaps, it'd be impossible to fill them all in because you've had such a rich life, but when your mum first came to the UK without your dad, she then had you with somebody else that you then later found out was your real father at 12. Yeah, I didn't find out he was my birth father until I was about 11, 12 years old. Yeah. So basically, and this happened a lot. My mum was not the only person. There's a great book by Elise Dodgson called Motherland, where she talks about migrants coming from the Caribbean to Britain.

35:18And lots of people came to this country and ran away from their family or did not take responsibility for their wife and children or did not send for anybody. You know, the promise was when I get there, I'll set up and then I'll send for you. And then they didn't do it because they fell in love. My mum arrived here and within a very short space of time, fell in love and had me. When I found out I was 11, and it kind of really rocked my world. I didn't know what to think about it. I was only 11. I was a kid. And I was, it's in my book, but I was doing chores for this random uncle who'd suddenly come out of the woodwork called Bertie, Uncle Bertie.

36:00And I'd go to his house on a Friday and I'd sweep out the living room and I'd clean the windows and I'd help with the washing up and then he'd feed me. I'd have, you know, whatever he cooked. It was a good cook, chicken and rice and peas and stuff. And then I'd get two and six and then I'd go. And I did that for ages. And then one day, his son, who was called Lloyd, who was this very good looking guy, who was always studying lingua phone, French on headphones and doing his homework. He was about 18. So he was older than me and I'd be looking at him. And he looked at me one day and he said, you have no idea why you're here, do you?

36:35I said, what do you mean? I was 11. What do you mean? He said, he's your dad. And I went, what? He said, go and ask him. He's your dad. That's why you're here. And he did it as casually as that. And then you went up to Bertie. Well, my heart was like this. And I went into the kitchen where he was doing that thing where you bang the rice on the wall to see if it's done. And I said to him, Lloyd says, you're my dad. Is that true? He said, yes. Your mum will never tell you. and I at that point it felt like a big cosmic carpet and had been whipped from beneath my feet and I didn't I felt like I was falling and I ran home I didn't even start didn't even eat what it cooked but I ran home and I said to my mum Bertie says he's my dad is that true and she said yes and I was I was able to say why didn't you tell me and she said I I thought he'd tell you and I didn't think it was my place to tell you.

37:32I wanted you to get to know him and I wanted him to tell you.

37:37And for a long time, I was very frightened about it all. I had two dads, the only kid with two dads. Take one dad into the shower, no, I take two. I was really scared of it all. Yeah, I bet. And I was really upset by it. And it took me a long time to reconcile that I wasn't the only person this had happened to and I had to get on with my life and not worry about it. But it was a hard thing to overcome, but I did. Because my friends, actually, Greg and Mac and Tom, my best friends, when I had the courage to tell them what was going on, because every time I saw Bertie, I'd kind of freeze or, you know, I'd panic.

38:15He'd come over the park to see me, to say hello. And I'd freak out when he was, because I just thought, nobody knows, nobody knows, nobody knows. And even when I was on telly in the first few years, nobody knew that he was my birth father. and so every time I did an interview I had to kind of do this thing about yeah yeah my dad my dad and I was talking about Winston my stepdad I wasn't talking about Bertie so it was a real thing and then eventually and I'm talking about like yesterday when I wrote Danny in the human zoo I started to think I've just gotta let this go I've just gotta just tell the story but I still made an imaginary universe where I'm Danny and I'm you know I'm still in the Blackwell Minstrels and I'm still with my mates and I still go to Blackpool and but I even then I had to kind of put it behind a mask so that I wasn't telling my story I was telling a story about this guy who wins new faces but it was me yeah and you're able to process it through your art yeah so that's how I was able to deal with it yeah but it took a long time to be able to tell the story in a way that I I wouldn't have dreamt of telling Fern Cotton this 20 years ago.

39:23But isn't that so interesting and brilliant that we have this brain that is malleable and it can change, we can create new neural pathways so that those things that weighed us down, that make us feel, whatever it is, embarrassed, shamed, whatever, that can go and you can, you're not rewriting the story, but you're rewriting your story of what happened. I did a really, I did a very interesting book called The Artist's Way. I love The Artist's Way. And it did this thing where you have morning pages. We've had Julia Cameron on the podcast. She's brilliant. She's amazing. So I did that for a while.

39:59And I write a journal every day. And I think the journal primed the pump for me to write my story and to not lie, to not cover up. Writing the journal every day where I was just talking to myself every day and not even reading it sometimes because my handwriting is appalling. But I started writing this journal and I got used to just going, oh, this happened today. That happened today. Oh, I was thinking about mom the other day. What about that moment when this happened? And what about that moment when that happened? And I suddenly realized that I something.

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42:03Come free within me. And so when I got commissioned by Faber to write the first book, Who Am I Again? I wasn't quite as defensive about my upbringing, my childhood as I had been previously. You know, my editor, lovely Walter Donahue, said, well, you know, you're going to tell the story, you're going to tell the story. And I was really frightened. And then there was one day where, you know, just tell the story. And I hadn't written the book yet, but they have this thing when you write a book where you, all the writers get up and say, my book is about this. And they read an excerpt and I was with Lisa my partner and I was a bit scared and I hadn't written anything but I told the story about realizing my birth father was not my the father who'd been raising me I told that story and you couldn't hear a pin drop in the room and I thought wow telling the truth is really powerful yeah you know if you can bear it if you can if you can bear to testify and go this is my truth it kind of releases something in you and it's invigorating yeah and I'm still not 100 % there but I'm getting there with this and you know what Russell T Davies kept saying to me you don't have to write the truth but if you write a truth that's a good place to start it does set you free though I think when something lives outside of you whether it's on a page or you've told someone you really trust, and it's not just rumbling around in your head, creating a hell of a lot of noise.

43:44It is so freeing. And actually, all the judgment that you fear is never there. I've had moments like that where I've talked about my mental health or all sorts of things, and I've felt so terrified or ashamed about things. And then once I've said them out loud, nothing happens, the world's still turning, everything's okay. I had grief counselling when my mum died. Yeah. And there's a thing in our culture where, you know, a man's got to be a man. You know, everybody's got to be Gary Cooper, like Tony Soprano. What happened to Gary Cooper? You know, would Gary Cooper have therapy? And it was a bit like that.

44:21And my role model in terms of men was my birth father and the father that raised me, who were very taciturn. The father that raised me didn't really talk to us. You know, I'd see my birth dad once a week. He said the odd thing, but there were no conversations of meaning. And so when I had grief counseling, it was like I had all this stuff stored up inside me that for the first time in my life, I could get out. And it was literally like scraping it out of me. Somebody going, let's just scrape that horrible thing out of you. And it really helped me. And I think people notice it. They go, wow, you're different.

45:02You're lighter. You've got joy now. Whereas I think maybe before I was, I mean, I always put on a show. I was like, Lenny Henry, hooray, da-da. But when the people who knew me knew that I had my mom's face sometimes. My mom's face when she didn't think anybody was looking was a bit grumpy. And I think that's because life was hard. You know, and when you're going through stuff, in terms of relationships, in terms of parenting, in terms of your kids, in terms of anything, you're going through it and you're trying to figure out how we're going to get through this and I hope this comes to an end soon because it's a pain in the ass.

45:37I want to get through this. You're always thinking and I think getting it out there and talking to somebody and listen, it doesn't have to be a therapist. They cost a lot of money. It can be your best mate. Yeah. You can talk to your best mate and I'm very blessed that I have a small group of friends that I think I can just go, I've had a shit week this week. Do you want to know what happened to me? and then, you know, they go, well, you've got a nice ass. What have you got to be worried about? You know, you can talk about things that are metaphysical or existential or just spiritual. You can talk about these things and you can get it out of you.

46:14I'm really worried about this aspect of my character and I hope I can not be that guy sometimes. I'd like it if I could be more like this. You know, you can have those kind of conversations and it's all right. Yes. Because you're talking to somebody who likes you, who knows you. And it's important. These relationships are important. It's essential. Did you notice, I don't know if it came during that period of therapy or maybe before, that there were periods in your life in the earlier days, perhaps, where humour was working for you in terms of you could turn painful things into funny things. But actually, was there a moment where you noticed that is actually stopping me dealing with that pain?

46:51I think that humour for a long time for me was my sword and my shield. So it was this thing where I could use it to defend myself, or I could hit back because I couldn't fight at all. I couldn't fight for Toffee. And I was always getting beat up by bullies and stuff or racially abused. And the only thing I could think of was to make a joke. This kid called...

47:17This bloke called Jeff. This bloke called Jeff used to pick up me every day at school and punch me and knock me to the floor. And eventually, after many, many times of being beaten and kicked by this guy, I said to him, and I quote, you must really fancy me because we're always rolling around on the ground together. Why don't we just buy a ring and get it over with? And then all the people around you used to go, fight, fight, fight, laughed. And it was like angels had just suddenly sung. I just thought, that's a nice sound. And while I was being kicked by this guy repeatedly, I thought, they just laughed.

47:50Why did they laugh? What's different about that to what I was doing before? And I realised, actually, humour is fighting back. I wasn't just lying there taking it. I was saying things back at this guy. And eventually, these white allies said, I'll leave Lenny alone. He's funny. And that happened a lot. I still got picked on. But more and more people going, Lenny's all right. You know, you need to leave him alone. And suddenly, I had these allies. Graham Willits, Graham Rose, and Stuart Cook. They were my allies. And thank God for them. And Stuart Collins. Thank God for them. Because that's how I got through the fourth and fifth year of my school.

48:26They were my cohort. They were my bands of steel. They surrounded me and they kept me safe. And sometimes when I was on my own, I still got picked on. But generally at school, I was all right the last two years. You need that. Yeah, you really do. It's all about that support network, having great mates. But at work, right, as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At work, it was very, because I started work in the industry when I was 16. And I was a child. and my daughter wanted to be in the business and there was a time when she's a great singer and she plays piano and saxophone and she wanted to, and I think we just went, do you really want to, she was only 14 when she was saying this stuff, I said, maybe you should wait and see if this takes.

49:09And she didn't, in the end she didn't. But there was a brief period where I thought I was going to have to say, I don't think this business is the best protector of people your age. Yeah, it's not. I saw adult behaviour when I was 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 when now, if this was me now looking at that kid, I'd say, all right, let's get you out of here. Everybody's drinking here. Ooh, they're all doing drugs here. Let's go. You know, I would have done that. But at the time it was like, ooh, I'm 16. This is great. I went to party. There's grownups here and they're all misbehaving. You know, it was like that.

49:43And I think there's aspects of this business that are not admirable for kids of a certain age. And you see the stories of kids going the wrong way, don't you, all the time. Yeah. And it's because there's nobody really watching out for them. Yeah, without a doubt. So when people ask me, well, should my child do this? I go, well, what else do they want to do? I know. Maybe they should go to uni first. Well, there's still myth that fame's going to bring something magical, mystical that solves all the problems, and it doesn't. Well, you might get money, but you also, you want your kids to go to uni, meet somebody, fall in love a few times, do a stupid job.

50:19Now, Robbie Coltrane always used to say, you know, when you're an actor, it's really good if you've had a job. You know, if you've done a job, Robbie's a mechanic and he's been a painter and, you know, he'd done lots of things. Lexi'd been a teacher. Dawn and Jennifer taught. You know, if you've had this experience of other life, it really comes in spades when you become an actor or a comedian or something. So I would encourage any kid to have a life first before you go into show business. Yeah. Because you're going to need it. Well, if anything, it's got, I don't know if it's got worse. Has it got worse?

50:54The judgment, the critiques perhaps got worse because there's bigger scope for people to comment. There's the wider scope of commentary, which I think is people are prepared for. If you haven't got a thick skin. Yeah. I think work gives you a thick skin. If you're an apprentice and there's somebody telling you off because you did this wrong and that wrong, and you learn to get over that and overcome that, and you learn to do the job they've been teaching you for the last six months, and you find a click, it's an achievement to go through something at work. to learn how to remember all the coffees that everybody wants or to learn how to help to assemble the welding machine or something.

51:25It's an achievement. And I think that the fact that you've got a talent is great, but oh my God, if you really know your stuff, it comes in handy. You know, I used to meet all these guys who did sound systems and they weren't just, they didn't just carry the boxes. They knew how to make speakers or they knew how to make microphones or they knew how to fix the decks if something went wrong. This is all stuff that's going to help you in the future. Have you found yourself slipping into a bit of a mentor role with your three main actors in Three Little Birds? Because you were saying, Hosanna, actually this is her first big role.

52:01Yeah, Yasmin's never done a... This is Yasmin's first job. Which is unbelievable watching her performance, which is impeccable. She's so great. And it's great watching her learn and watching her figure out things for herself. But, you know, when they wanted to talk to me and ask me about stuff, I'd just be available. I'd talk to them about it. They're all very good and they all know their stuff. So I didn't, there was no lack of confidence as far as I was concerned. They were all excellent. Everybody, and Javon Prince is in it. Arthur Darville's in it. You know, it's good. It's lovely to be part of this little gang.

52:34I'm happy to be the guy who's been doing this a long time because it's a long time coming. You know, I was talking to somebody on the phone yesterday about their career. You know, I was talking to somebody last week about what show they're going to do next to Edinburgh. So I like to be that person who can say, well, when I did such and such, this happened to me. And just by being able to give testimony, I can help. If I can do that, if I can help somebody, it's good. You can move the conversation down the road a bit. And I like doing that for the young people. Yeah, it's lovely. Isn't it mad when you start off as the youngest person on the set, which I very much was as well.

53:17and then you go, oh my God, I'm the oldest person. It's me. Bloody hell. I'm the oldest person here. People call you Mr. or Miss, you know, it's horrible. Mr. Henry, do you want a cup of tea? Oh, now Sir. Sir Lenny. Sir Lenny, which is really weird. Sir Lenny, do you want a cup of tea? And yeah, it's really bizarre. But you know, you realise that that thing of youth is wasted on the young. It's not really true because I know lots of young people have had a ball. But this idea of preserving your mental health, overcoming and sticking at things. Yeah. And we've both had careers. And it's this sense of, what do I have to do to get through this?

53:58It's hard to get through it. This industry is tough. You know, a lot of Jamaicans go, well, you need to have a side hustle just in case. You know, Roger Griffiths, when we were doing Chef, literally had a lockup where he made Jamaican food and sold it. online like Deliveroo. Heaven. And I said, why are you doing that? He said, Justin Keir's. My mum made wedding cakes. She made dresses. She catered things. It was a side hustle. Yeah. She did lots of things. Yeah. And I think that's to be admired. It's admirable. Of course it is. And also, if it's passion-led, even better. Yeah. Even better. Oh, I can't wait to see more of Three Little Birds.

54:43I've only seen two episodes. I can't wait to watch the third. Thank you for making it. It's not only heartwarming and poignant and heartbreaking, but I think it's also an essential education as well. Thank you. In parts of the history of the UK that we don't know enough about, quite frankly. I think what's interesting about it is David Olasoga, who I really respect as a historian, has basically said, all of this stuff is our history. Don't think of it as black history or brown history. It's our history. The Windrush happened to you as much as it happened to us, and we should celebrate it together.

55:15and as much as it being, it's not quite, it's been made to entertain and for us to engage with, but I think it could also be a teaching tool. You know, you could show this to a bunch of kids. Lucy Bedford, one of our producers, brought her daughter to a screening the other day and said all the way home, her daughter was asking her questions and that's good. That's wonderful. If your kids are sitting there going, was it really like that? And was granddad like that? Was grandma like that? Did they really say no blacks, no Irish, no dogs? Why did they do that? you know, these are good questions to be asking.

55:47And I wish I could be a fly on the wall when people are answering those questions. Yeah, exactly. You're starting some good dinner table chat for sure. But look, thank you so much. And it's just been a joy to talk to you. Thank you, Lenny. Thank you very, very much for allowing me to say these things. And these are conversations with this show that everybody should be having, really. It's important to talk about these things. So thank you for allowing me to speak my trauma on your show.

56:21oh god Lenny thank you so much I just adored that chat thank you so much for spending time with me I really loved that and I've really been thinking about the importance of documenting our parents and grandparents stories it's so important even just to ignite those chats if those people are still in your life now. Come and find us over on Instagram at Happy Place Official. I'd love to know what you've learned about your family history and also what you thought about that episode. Three Little Birds will be on ITV and ITVX on the 29th of October and Lenny's children's book The Boy With Wings Clash of the Super Kids is out now.

57:01And if you want to know more about those morning pages in the artist's way that Lenny and I were talking about do search your podcast feed for the Julia Cameron episode. It's fascinating. Back next week, but for now, it's a huge, huge thank you to Lenny, to the producers of this episode, Sophie King and Anushka Tate at Rethink Cordio, and to you. I love you loads.

57:38Thank you.

58:08your way. No matter what you sell or what you aspire to be, you can do it all yourself on Wix. Go to Wix.com. You're invited to spend an evening on Fremont Avenue. For generations, this house has been home to soulful music, good food, and cutthroat card games, saints and sinners, unexpected laughs and unspoken truths, good times, hard times, and of course, family, always family. So pull up a chair and join us at Fremont Avenue, a world premiere play only at Arena Stage. Performances start October 8th. Tickets at arenastage.org. Hey, I'm Dr. Z and I'm a neurosurgeon. So that means long hours, early rounds, late nights, and everything in between.

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