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Well, the tour is over!
Posted Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Well, the tour is over!
We did it in several hits, starting at the Wyndham’s theatre in the sizzling Kebab that is London’s West End, and then we took the whole thing to Australia and New Zealand. We took a brief pause and then began a 56 date tour of the United Kingdom. We didn’t get everywhere, and for that I apologise –I’ll try and get up to the far North and Scotland, and to parts of Ireland on the next tour. For now though, it looks like I’m pretty set for the Christmas period – I go up to Dudley soon to see my family ( Hi chaps) and we’re gonna party and eat big food and have a good time. Yes there will be embarrassing dancing from grown ups; yes, someone will say, “I can’t eat any more” pretend to fall over and die and then ten minutes later get up and have seconds, thirds or whatever. Yes, small children will display their break-dancing skills and wind up hurting themselves.
I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone.
Then its back down to the homestead for Chrimbo. I like cooking, so I’ll be trying to source the meat ( Our local butcher closed ) and plan several days of eating pleasure- Is it possible to get a whole turkey into your mouth in one go? I’m prepared to give it a go. Then we’ll watch all that television that happens at Christmas time –‘The Sound of Music’, “The lounge is alive with the sound of snoring” (Thanks Don), ‘The Great Escape’. Isn’t it weird ? When Christmas comes, we do expect to see lots of old movies on the TV. .when a new movie appears on the schedules it seems too fresh to me – I don’t want to see ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Shrek’ on Christmas day –they’re too new. Also, we can get these things on Video –what’s the point? There’s ‘Ben Hur’ to watch again or ‘Mary Poppins’, or ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’.
You have to let us mourn the passing of some movies as movies before they’re released onto the TV schedules.
I’m not doing a Christmas special this year ( I love doing Christmas specials –its like in ‘The Beano’ and ‘The Dandy’, you knew it was Christmas because each character’s title panel had snow and holly and stuff all over their name), but I am on the radio -on Boxing Day at 4pm for two and a half hours. My special guests are the wonderful comedy actress Catherine Tate, star of her self titled sketch show and also co starring in Wild West with DawnFrenchoffthetelly.
Also featured in the show is Louella Gideon, very funny woman who was in The Real McCoy, The Lenny Henry Show and has performed her own sit com on Radio Four.
There’s a young impressionist called Lewis McCloud, very funny –great voices. He’s usually to be found on ‘2DTV’ and I think he might be on ‘Dead Ringers’ but I’m not sure.
Josh Weinstein is a very talented writer and producer who worked with people like Greg Kinnear from ‘As Good As It Gets’ and ‘Talk Soup’ and also ‘Roseanne’; he calls from America and gives us a round up of the year’s highs and lows in the US of A.
We feature a live set from singing sensation Lemar. This guy has such a wonderful tone to his voice, you will cry when you hear him sing. I was very privileged to be in the studio when he was practising his session and his singing is inspirational.
There are, of course, jokes, japes, wheezes, skits and so on throughout the show – and Great Music …We go from ‘Destiny’s Child’ to ‘Ian Dury and the Blockheads’, From ‘Billie Holliday’ to ‘Outkast’, from ‘The Commodores’ to ‘Louis Prima’, so its quite an eclectic mix of jams. Of course ‘Prince’, ‘Funkadelic’ and ‘De La Soul’ are in the house too –so the show music wise is tight.
Check it out if you get a chance.
I was invited to the BBC Controller’s house for Christmas drinks last night –it was lovely, lots of mulled wine and different types of Crimbo food…but there was a point when she came round, handing out Christmas carol sheets ….there was like, 20 pages of Carols !!! What’s up with that? You’ve invited us into your home, people
like Rolf Harris, and Bruce Forsyth, and Amanda Holden and Robert Lindsay and the Little Britain Posse and Amanda Redman, to, to, what? Work? We’re supposed to be off !!!! It’s Christmas! ( I said this to myself obviously- this is the Controller of BBC One –you think I’m gonna mouth off to her? I was singing my ass off –harmonies –everything.
Me and Bruce are gonna start a band.)
Rob Brydon (v. funny comic, impressionist, character actor) told me last night that he is about to do a film about the theatre critic Kenneth Tynan. I was very impressed, because that kind of acting seems to be very grown up. I asked him how he approached a role like that, did he begin with the shoes like Beryl Reid, or the Wig or prosthetics or teeth like Alec Guinness –how did he begin the process of embodying another human being ? He paused for a brief moment and then said, ‘Well, Lenny, I tend to begin with The Fee. Residuals are also important of course, per diem too –but the overall fee is what I’m looking for, that’s what I want to see in place and then the character just seems to pop into place.’
V. funny.
Comics wise, I’m still enjoying ‘We3’ by Grant Morrison –the art is stunningly violent and the premise, incredibly topical I think.
Neil Gaiman has some nice little hard back books out and about, they’re worth seeking out –there’s ‘1602’ which is the collected episodes of his monthly comic about the Marvel Universe set in the time of Elizabeth 1 and James 1 ….a wonderfully wrought tale of intrigue, murder, mutants and rebels.
I read ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ the other day –and I was struck by how influential that whole re imagination of an existing character has been. The idea of Bruce Wayne as a sixty something, retired vigilante with suicidal tendencies –suddenly deciding to don cape and cowl for one more time, is awesome.
Great artwork too –very funny use of the media throughout, (reminiscent of Howard Chaykin’s ‘American Flagg’)- A parody of the David Letterman show turns ice cold when the Joker kills every one in the studio…including Paul Schaeffer –Yikes, his version of ‘Knee Deep’ isn’t that bad.
I’m still reading ‘Ex Machina’ and enjoying it heaps, I’m loving the Bendis take on ‘Daredevil’, I’m also loving ‘Powers’ (thought there was a bit of a slump with the publisher change, but it seems to have recovered its original brio) and Ultimate stuff. On the ‘Ultimate Spiderman’ though – Please resist doing any more dumb ‘My assistant editor thought this one up so don’t blame me’ type stories. ‘The Wolverine is inhabiting my body and I his’ was such a useless story that Stan Lee would have refused to wipe his arse on it. I hope Bendis’ ‘I’ll do anything, me’ enthusiasm for writing and creating doesn’t hole him beneath the water line.
New Avengers stuff is pretty neat though….(I can’t believe I’m reading Marvel Comics again – I stopped for ages, thinking that the Vertigo line was the thang…but here I am 46 years old and reading about Spiderman..it’s mental.)
The new year is going to be very creative indeed, I think. We have to get the second series of ‘The Lenny Henry Show’ up and running for an April May run, which means from February onwards we’re just in a massive gag frenzy. I’m hoping to do a theatre play next year and some more TV drama. It’s also Year five of my Open University course – I’m doing 20th Century literature next year. I’m on Orlando at the moment by Virgina Woolf …She be weird. But not as weird as Allen Ginsberg-Have you read ‘Howl?’ It’s like having your nose tweezered by The Rock.
Any how, I gotta run, things to see, people to do.
You’ve been lovely this year – there are going to be considerable changes to the site pretty soon –we’re going to streamline things a bit, create more comedy bits, and finally…have some merchandise that you can only get on the website.
Thank you for checking me out –I’ll try and make the site chatty, interesting to look at and groovy.
Big Love
Have a Brilliant Christmas and a Pulsating new year …
Len
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