Lenny Henry

Lenny Henry

When I was young, I was told by my friend's laughter that I could impersonate nearly anybody. But what made me want to be a comedian for real, was listening to people like Richard Pryor. I realised the challenge was not just being a really good black comedian, but a really good comedian full stop.

I'm a big fan of really stupid humour and a big fan of really smart writing. If the story is good, then I wanna know what happens next. I'm not talking about posh, toff comedy, I'm talking about someone who gets the message across.

For a long time, one just accepted racist jokes. But once I saw probably the most offensive comedian there is, live. The jokes were just awful. I wasn't the only black person there, but it was like the person was trying to damage me psychologically. I felt dirty. After 10 minutes, I went back to the hotel, and had a really long shower. I just had to cleanse myself.

A racist joke is anything that hurts you. Makes you feel dirty, that something unjust has happened.

I was once at a show where a famous black woman was in the front row of the audience. The act said 'oh, look at this black lady in the front row. You better be careful or there'll be spears coming at you'.

She stood up. 'I don't have to take this! I paid good money to come and see this show! You're s'posed to be entertaining me! I'm outta here!!'

The whole table got up and walked out. It was fantastic, it was a big deal.

You can turn racism on it's head. There's this racist teacher, who says 'did your parents have an arranged marriage, boy?', in a menacing voice.

'Yeah' the boy replies. 'Me Dad arranged it in da church and me Mum arranged to be there!'

And when I was a young kid, I had this great gag - 'Enoch Powell's offered us a thousand pounds to go home which is great' 'cos it's only 20p on the no 74 bus from Wolverhampton!'

What you do with racism is reject it. Some people say 'I don't let it get to me'. But you must say something if you think somebody is being deliberately offensive.

Peer groups are very difficult - after all, they're your mates! So what you have to do is say 'I'm really uncomfortable with that line of humour you're taking and I'm finding it offensive. Could you just back off with that?'

And sometimes sarcasm, 'like yeah, that's right, we do have spears,' 'cos I'm from, Dudley y'know, and we always walk down the street with spears', works, but y'know, I'm a comedian. In the real world that can get you hurt.

You must act - walk out, something. You don't have to be a victim.