Sir Lenny: Too few black faces at BBC

SIR Lenny Henry has called on the BBC to do more on racial diversity – and singled out the corporation’s news operation for particular criticism.

Speaking at a media event, he said: ‘When I look over into the newsroom, and all the people there that make the news, there’s very few that look like me.

‘And every film set you walk on to there’s Dave, Pete, Charlie, Terry – there are not many Raheems. That needs to change too.’

Sir Lenny, 63, also had a dig at MasterChef, which is moving its filming location to Birmingham, near his boyhood home of Dudley. He told the Creative Cities Convention in the second city: ‘It’s great for us but tricky for MasterChef because it means they are going to have to stop voting all the black people off first... You must have seen it.’