Lenny Henry’s latest foray into live performance takes him back to his comedy roots, after several years doing theatre and television work. Still at Large, which I saw at Soho Theatre Walthamstow, is part stand-up, part storytelling as he talks about his life and career.
He starts by bringing us up to date with what has been happening since he last toured – including winning a BAFTA and being knighted by the late Queen. Not bad for a career which started with him doing impressions on the television talent show New Faces, and later included Henry co-founding Comic Relief and appearing in Shakespeare at the National Theatre
At 67, he’s feeling old, he says, and the hair on his head has disappeared, only to reappear elsewhere, making his gonads “look like they have an Afro”. He talks a lot about his contented life in the countryside with his partner, Lisa, and the large family he grew up with in Dudley.
Henry jokes that his parents, who came to the UK from Jamaica, thought the UK had created a place specially for them in the Black Country. It’s not the only gag making a reappearance here; new jokes are thin on the ground among tried and tested anecdotes that will sound familiar to his fans.
He rattles off one story after another, talking about how he was able to provide for his late mum after he achieved fame, why he doesn’t do reality TV (unless to pay for an extension, of course) and his love of showmen like James Brown, Teddy Pendergrass and Prince – memorably described as “a penis in heels”.
The evening is filled with positivity, is celebratory even, but Henry also inserts some sharp asides about slavery, racism and the shifting cultural landscape among the mostly lighthearted fare.
The second half is a Q&A with questions from the audience, some of which prompt Henry to show snippets from his TV career on the large onstage screen.
It’s all rather lovely and undemanding, but Henry saves the best till last. After a soliloquy from Othello he ends with a modern reworking of a song from one of his favourite characters, the old horndog Theophilus P Wildebeeste – “the most fertile man in the universe” – a character Henry suspects he wouldn’t get away with now. The P may now stand for permission rather than any naughty alternatives, but TPW still proves to be a great creation.
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