Lenny Henry questions lack of diversity at Glastonbury
SIR Lenny Henry has questioned why the audience at Glastonbury is so white.
“It’s interesting to watch Glastonbury and look at the audience and not see any black people there. I’m always surprised by the lack of black and brown faces at festivals,” Sir Lenny said.
His new BBC Two documentary, Lenny Henry’s Caribbean Britain, is a celebration of British-caribbean cul- ture, including the music brought to the UK by the Windrush generation.
Relatively few black artists play at Glastonbury. Jay Z’s booking in 2008 prompted Noel Gallagher to complain: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Glastonbury has a tradition of guitar music. I’m not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It’s wrong.”
Jay Z was followed by Beyonce (2011), Kanye West (2015) and Stormzy (2019) in the headline slot. The BBC’S recent series, Art That Made Us, chose Stormzy’s set as one of the most significant landmarks of the past 1,500 years.
Speaking to Radio Times, Sir Lenny, 63, said that some areas of British cultural life – such as Glastonbury – remain very white. But he said there was integration in other areas, and described how his own mother’s love for British television after she moved to the UK.
“Everybody had this thing of, ‘Well, in a few years’ time I’ll go back,’” he said of a generation’s desire to go back to the country of their birth.
“My mum did go back and what she found was that although she had felt Jamaican for all these years, she was actually very British.
“She missed Eastenders, she wanted to see Match of the Day. So she was actually quite Anglicised and that’s what this documentary is about: what our influence is on the British, the British Isles, and what their influence was on us. Was it a fair trade?”
As a child, Sir Lenny followed his mother’s instructions to integrate and set about making white friends.
He recalled: “Suddenly, I had something to compare myself to. I was at white friends’ houses and going, ‘They eat ham, egg and chips all the time ... You’re allowed to cheek your mum and dad in this house. You can put your feet on the furniture!’”