It’s no laughing matter as Lenny Henry turns 60!
THE LENNY HENRY BIRTHDAY SHOW Wednesday - BBC1, 8pm CUCKOO Monday - BBC1, 10.45pm
ME and Lenny Henry go back a long way. But, to my almost certain recollection, the only time I have ever seen him in the flesh was in a latenight drinking spot in Dublin’s Leeson Street.
We are talking the early Nineties here and he had just done a stand-up gig at the old Point Depot.
Meanwhile, I was coming from a terrific show that the late Kirsty MacColl had put on at the Olympia Theatre earlier the same evening.
The two of them ended up in conversation amid the other late-night revellers. Whether they knew each other or not previously is anyone’s guess, but I suppose showbiz folk will always gravitate towards each other.
After all these years, I can remember Lenny being exceptionally tall and looking like an unaffected, laid-back sort of chap. But I still didn’t think he was in the least bit amusing.
I think I’d first encountered him on Tiswas, the Saturday morning children’s show fronted by Chris Tarrant that ran from the mid-Seventies until the early Eighties.
Lenny appeared in several guises that included a spoof Rastafarian called Algernon Razzmatazz and a character based on newsreader Trevor McDonald (hilariously called, if memory serves, Trevor McDoughnut). Neither they nor his various other guises were even remotely funny.
By and large, the same could be said about most of his subsequent comic creations.
Even though there were a few chuckles to be had from soul singer Theophilus P Wildebeeste, the joke wore thin pretty quickly. So I can’t say I was expecting much from The Lenny Henry Birthday Show, which was broadcast to mark the great man turning 60.
Suffice to say I wasn’t disappointed. This hour-long special of self-indulgence – hosted by the aforementioned Sir Trevor – began with an excruciating skit based around Stevie Wonder and continued in a similarly unfunny vein.
For the most part, the format involved a look back at Lenny’s career as he reminisced to the studio audience about his
days on the club circuit and what-not.
He occasionally interrupted his trip down Memory Lane to do an impersonation of Frank Spencer or some other long-forgotten TV character.
This would have been bad enough in itself, but the fact that the whole thing was interspersed with new sketches made it even worse.
We can only hope that the BBC decides to let Lenny’s 70th birthday pass by quietly.
Greg Davies is also a very tall man, but he happens to be funny as well.
He is a fine stand-up comedian and excelled as Mr Gilbert, the vindictive, sarcastic teacher in The Inbetweeners.
The fourth series of Cuckoo sees him reprise his role as putupon provincial lawyer Ken Thompson.
Last Monday’s episode began with him phoning the police to complain about noisy new neighbour Lloyd (Nigel Harman).
By the time the constabulary arrived on the scene, Ken had actually joined the housewarming party and was getting nicely into the swing of things.
He also quickly noticed that Lloyd seemed to be leading a rather more exciting life and thus an unlikely bromance began.
There was something almost touching about the puppyish devotion that Ken showed to his new pal.
This was a full-blown mid-life crisis, albeit without a flashy sports car or a 22-year-old French au pair.
There’s no fool like an old fool!