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I've been bad again

Posted Tuesday, June 13, 2006

HEY! I've had a ball in the last few months- sorry I've been a bit pants about my blog - but when you're in the world of show business/comedy/jokes, sometimes you haven't got time to break off from all the endless schmoozing, and backslapping, awards collecting etc to sit down and type. So how are you? I'm fine thanks for asking- some things are going on and you should know : I went up to see the wife (DawnFrenchoffthetelly) in her brilliant play 'Smaller' at the Manchester Opera house last night. I had an incredibly chatty driver who gave me his life story, his aspirations, dreams and inspirations from the Airport to the theatre. He was a really nice bloke -we got to the theatre and he said, 'I'll have to drop you on the corner Len, cos it's just here and they're a bit funny about uz parking outside' 'fair enough' I says- I get out, and find myself outside the Manchester Palace theatre, staring at endless posters of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! What the fxxk is going on - I'm there for a soul searching family drama with the songs of Alison Moyet and the comedy and dramatic stylings of the wife on top form, and I get a magic car and a pervy bloke running around chasing under fives. So I had to walk to the opera house, took at least ten minutes -by the time I got there, all the Mancs were saying stuff like, 'Hot enough for you son?' and 'ee's got a sweat on an't he?' . Once I got in, I was very well taken care of by the opera house staff, who whisked me away to the private green room where I was given a foot massage by two Malaccan midgets. Marvellous. The show rocked actually -and it was weird, the wife'd been talking about working in a bigger room in such an intimate play -but I think it worked. I remember moaning about the size of the venues when I was doing So Much Things To Say on tour -I only wanted to work in small theatres, because in my mind, the show warranted that. When I got to Australia, we did one five hundred-seater venue and then the next night, I was on at Perth Concert Hall, which is a two thousand-seater venue and the show went down a storm. I was a bit cross, but secretly pleased that the show had gone down so well. It proved to me that it could work at several levels. Oh, you should know that sometime soon, the BBC are going to announce this new show Called Lenny's Britain (working title). In it we're going to hoiking ourselves round the regions investigating local humour, the why's, hows, and who's of it all. I think it's gonna be great, but I need you guys to start sending me JOKES -wherever you live, send jokes in, guy walks into a bar, two fella's on a building site, type jokes, it's better if they relate to where you live, but any joke really. If we find a really funny joke that makes us laugh out loud, we'll put it up front and send you Chef T.Shirts and whatever we can

find in the broom cupboard. I'm working on a Richard Pryor Documentary soon, I go to Chicago and LA in early July -really looking forward to it . I'm hoping to talk to the key players in Pryor's life-Paul Mooney , perhaps (very funny comic) Lily Tomlin (She did one of the best live show's I"ve ever seen! Standing ovation at the end of the first half, and again at the end of the second half.) and others. Wish me luck- Im hoping the show will peel the layers of Pryor's character and give us a deeper insight into what drove the man; and also his demons, his loves, his vices, his fears. It's gonna be great -we've got the director who did Bernie Taupin's South Bank Show -a man called Bob Smeaton who worked on the Beatles Anthology project with Geoff Wonfor, so we're in good hands. At the moment I'm working at Tiger Aspect (home of Catherine Tate, The Lenny Henry Show, Vicar of Dibley and The Monastery.) with Kim Fuller and Metin Huseyin on a show which is provisionally called Slings and Arrows . It's about a guy called Beresford Cottrell, who runs a dry cleaners and is having the worst possible life, until he takes an Open University English degree, which changes everything for the better (well most things). The process of development is tough, we're slowly working our way through the script and then going back to the beginning and slowly working our way through again and I'm told, we'll keep doing that until someone says, 'Hey-Slings and Arrows -stick a fork in it, its done' . I'm enjoying the process funnily enough -very different to doing sketch comedy where you just sort of dive in and get on with it. Drama tends to be more hang wringing and head banging -but that can only be good for the project... I'm definitely doing some dates at the end of the year, probably November December time. I'm going to be in Brum with Jasper Carrot again from the 20th of December til the 23rd -in the Christmas Cracker - I think Jimmy Carr, and Jethro and Suzi Quatro, and a whole bunch of other's (including Roy Wood -wonder what he's gonna sing?) are going to be there -and it's gonna rock -so book early. That's all for now -keep your ears open for part two of Len and Will, which will play out on Radio four in the autumn -they'll repeat the first one and then follow with the sequel, which is going to involve me working on a piece of Shakespeare with Barry Rutter from Northern Broadsides, Hanging out at rehearsals of Peter Hall's Measure for Measure and talking to people like Patterson Joseph about building the perfect Othello performance, so listen out for that. I'm writing up a storm with the O.U's creative writing course -it's a hoot, very inspirational-I seem to be producing loads of story ideas for films and short stories and play notions ....I'm having a ball. Hoorah! keep checking out the site for more details -speak soon Len

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