Lenny Henry

Lenny Henry has been a comedian since the age of 16. He has risen from being a cult star on children’s television to becoming one of Britain’s best known comedians, as well as a writer, philanthropist and award-winning actor. In recent years Lenny has starred in The Comedy of Errors at The National, Fences at the Duchess Theatre, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar Warehouse and King Hedley ii at Theatre Royal Stratford East. Lenny’s on screen credits include Broadchurch, The Syndicate, The Long Song and the biographic film Danny and The Human Zoo. Lenny’s Production Company, Douglas Road, has achieved success in partnership with Burning Bright on the recently acclaimed The Commonwealth Kid documentary and has a host of other programmes in the pipeline. As a co-founder of Comic Relief Lenny was delighted to announce this year that the British Public has donated over £1billion to Comic Relief over the last 30 years. Lenny is a strong advocate for diversity, using his voice to give talks on the subject all over the world. He has been a Trustee of the National Theatre since February 2016 and was awarded a Knighthood in 2015 for services to drama and charity. In 2018 the BBC broadcast The Lenny Henry Birthday Show, looking back on Lenny’s career to commemorate his 60th birthday. In autumn 2019 Faber published Lenny’s memoir “Who am I again?” around which he wrote a live show that toured the UK for two months.

2020 has seen further book commissions with a follow-up memoir in the pipeline, two books on the topic of diversity, and a series of children's books published through Pan Macmillan. Lenny will also be writing his own TV drama series through 2021 and has just been announced as starring in Amazon's upcoming adaptation of Lord of The Rings.