Sir Lenny excited to bring comedy tour back home

Sir Lenny Henry has said he is looking forward to doing stand up comedy in the West Midlands again.

The comedian's Still At Large stand-up tour will be his first in 15 years and he is due to visit Coventry, Shrewsbury and his home town of Dudley among other locations.

The shows are a break from his acting and he said: "I really missed doing standup."

Returning home is also special and he added: "I love being able to relax and just be with the home crowd."

Sir Lenny said the acting came about after decades of comedy, when he thought: "I think there's a sixth gear that I'm not using."

But after appearances on the stage and in TV dramas including Broadchurch, the Rings of Power and The Witcher, he said it was time to return to stand up.

He said: "I miss coming to the Midlands, I miss talking to the audience, I missed doing characters and singing for no reason and I love just talking to people on the front row - geezers with too many tattoos on their bald heads."

Sir Lenny said his comedy routine had matured over the years.

He said when he started performing as a teenager "I was a mimic, I just copied people."

But with the help of writers including Kim Fuller, he said: "I learnt that I had a sense of humour that is totally mine."

That humour was "a bit Jamaican, a bit Dudley and it's basically me talking about things I love, things I worry about," he explained.

Henry said he was enjoying writing new material for the tour, which started in Maidenhead on Saturday.

He also said half the show would be a question and answer session and he was fully prepared for questions from his home crowed like: "Did you snog a girl called Jennifer in Dudley baths when you were 14?"

He is due to perform at Shrewsbury's Theatre Severn on 5 May, at Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry on 6 May and then Dudley Town Hall on 10 May.

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