He’s gone all the way from talent show comedy to Shakespeare and back. Now, Lenny Henry tells Viv Hardwick that his previous stand-up tour was too sad and needed a re-write

IT’S a surprise to discover that Lenny Henry felt last year’s Cradle To Rave sell-out tour to Darlington was the saddest comedy he’d done and had decided to rewrite the whole thing with his former writing partner Kim Fuller.

Renamed Pop Life, and touring to Durham, Stockton and Whitley Bay, the formula is as before. The 54-year-old, brandishing his recently-passed grade 4 piano examination certificate, will flesh out his passion for music mixed in with stories of family life and current events.

What is obvious is that the success of the Olympics and Paralympics just had to be included in his show. What was completely hidden to audiences in 2011 was Henry’s anguish over the failure of his marriage to fellow-comedian Dawn French and a series of other personal tragedies.

“We did the show last year and it was very, very good, but one reviewer said it was one of the saddest shows he’d ever seen. I think I’d been affected by the loss of a nephew and a niece and was in the middle of a divorce and was a bit in the doldrums,”

says Henry, who feels writing partner Jon Canter seemed to pick up on this mood and the show became a bit too autobiographical.

“Richard Wilson listened to the show and I asked him if it needed any work and he answered, ‘I think you should probably start from the beginning again, don’t you?’” explains Henry, who found himself with just a month to knock material for his 38-date tour into shape.

Fuller, co-creator of Three Of A Kind, The Lenny Henry Show and Saturday Night Live, came to the rescue.

Just prior to our chat, Henry had been on BBC1’s “pretty random” The One Show and had been asked to read out a poem by the nation as it was created by viewers on air.

“You’ve got to remember that I used to be part of Tiswas and it was never short of someone being covered in baked beans or having a bucket of water chucked at them. I’ve been well-trained by Chris Tarrant on Tiswas, so I can cope with a perfect replica of my face on a pumpkin or a poem written by the British public or a woman with a ski-slope head from the British Poets’ Society,” he jokes.

I have nothing but admiration for Henry’s decision to put his new-found skills as a pianist in front of the public. So what made him start taking lessons?

“I just didn’t want to seize up and my brain to stop working and I’ve found the piano is like learning Japanese while riding a unicycle at the same time. I think it slightly pushes you to make your brain work harder along new neural pathways. I don’t want to be in an old people’s home and have people shouting at me, ‘Hello, how are you? Are you all right?’ I want to be the guy who is being naughty and not the guy eating his blanket,” Henry jokes.

POPLIFE will feature the comedian’s music exam pieces with taking the rise out of Associated Board of Music Exams because he found himself having to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

“If you’re black you really expect the horn section to be behind you even when you’re doing grade one.

It’s really embarrassing to be taking your exam and you’re sitting in a suit and tie and these little children of five, six or seven walk in and do grade seven or eight and fold out sheet music that is five yards long. They’re playing Beethoven beautifully and I’m going ding-ding, ding-ding, ding-ding, ding,” he says.

In spite of this insight, Henry seems to have got more serious of late and confounded those who thought his career was over by making a success of the lead in Othello with Northern Broadsides in 2009 and made his Royal National Theatre debut in Shakespeare’s The Comedy Of Errors last year.

Off-stage, he followed a degree in English Literature, with the Open University, in 2007, with an MA in screenwriting at the University of London and is busy with a Phd on black people in media.

“I realised that studying could only be part-time when you’re in a band called Poor White Trash and the Little Bighorns, and trying to write plays, TV programmes and films and be a Phd. I was going to explode and I don’t want to explode. I always try to present a moving target that does different things.

“I want people to enjoy my new show, so I’ve got to concentrate on it. I don’t need to be doing 14 other things when I’m trying to write, perform or rehearse,” Henry says.

But isn’t there pressure on him to be funny all the time?

“I was like that until my daughter (Billie) arrived and from the minute we adopted my daughter that kind of performing seal thing slightly went out of my life because I wanted to protect my daughter.

“It’s not her fault I’m on the telly, and I think we did manage to protect her,” he says, admitting that Billie is still “incredibly embarrassed by everything I do. You’ve got to bear in mind that her father dressed as Beyonce and was on Youtube, so she’s had to deal with a lot,” he says.

“Although Dawn and I are divorced we co-parent and we love her very much and have put a lot of love into her. But Billie is now on her own journey, which is cool.”

Henry is delighted that his daughter is studying agriculture at university and is staying away from the entertainment business. “I think she’s avoided that trap of being the daughter of two people on telly and then tried to made her own way in showbusiness.

That can lead to a tough time,” he says.

In spite of TV work drying up, Henry is never off our screens because of his appearances in Premier Inn adverts stretching back to 2009.

“It’s been quite a journey which started as a funny mini-sketch to horror and film parodies to a more general thing lately. Somehow, when I go on tour a yellow duck appears in my bathroom and I find a cutout of myself holding a sign saying £29. So, clearly other hotels find it hilarious,” he says.

THE comedian is in the process of simplifying his “over-complicated” lennyhenry.com website and maintains his blogs and tweets while on tour.

“I haven’t been on telly for a while and it’s because I’m trying to think of a great idea for a sitcom to write with Kim Fuller. I’m very aware that people want to keep up with what I’m doing,” he says.

How about writing about a black BBC executive I suggest, following up his recent criticism that few fellow blacks are in management with the world’s best-known broadcaster.

“Well, if I was an executive then I’d give myself a series,” he jokes.

  • Poplife tour dates: October 27: Durham, Gala Theatre, Box Office: 0191-332-4041 October 30, The Arc, Stockton, 01642-525-199 October 31, Whitley Bay Playhouse, 0844-277-2771