A message from Lenny Henry
I am a character comedian; Ive been involved in sketch shows and situation comedies since the 70s. I was in shows called Three of a Kind with Tracey Ullman and David Copperfield and Ive done various incarnations of The Lenny Henry Show here ever since.
I come from a large Jamaican family, and my Auntie Pearl (God rest her soul), is the reason Im reading this book to you. She took me to Dudley Library and we borrowed Little Black Sambo. I read that and freaked out, thinking (in my seven-year-old head) that I had a life ahead of being called Sambo (not true) and for some reason chased around Dudley by a Tiger (true). I didnt like that book at all. However, as if to make up for the L.B.S experience, Auntie Pearl later took me to a newsagent and bought me some comics. The X Men, the Fantastic Four, and so on were featured in British versions called Fantastic! and Terrific and Smash and Wham! I was hooked.
Cut to many years later Im still reading comics and I am particularly a huge fan of DCs The Sandman written by Neil Gaiman. I sought out other stuff of his, Black Orchid, Signal to Noise and like that...he and Dave McKean were and still are an unbeatable team.
I finally got to meet Neil Gaiman at Richard Curtiss flat to discuss an idea about a Marvel/DC/ Brit comics Jam to raise a lot of dough for charity. His impression of me then is that I got out of the chair...and I kept getting out of the chair. I managed to control myself at that meeting...enough for Neil to think I was an "alright bloke (ha ha ha he bought it!). Then we met again at a watering hole in London (not literally a watering hole, we werent licking on salt and butting heads) called the Groucho club and got to chatting. I think I yanked Paul Gambaccini out of the way by his nostrils to hang out with the Gaimster...the conversation was of Sandman, and working for DC, and "Do you really know Dave Sim?, and (very drunk now) 'OK, who is the strongest, the Thing or the Hulk?
Shortly after this auspicious meeting he and I did several things. Firstly, A Comic Relief Comic, which made a lot of money for charities in Africa and the UK, and then a TV show called Neverwhere, which led to the bestselling book, and the tape, and the DVD, and, in a while, the comic. So Neil and I go back a ways...he helped me do field surgery on my sick Airedale, Delilah and as he stood there holding the dog's head that was encased in one of those lampshade thingies, I applied a bandage to her wounds and listened as Neil told me this idea about Anansi, the spider god, and his two sons... I think he asked me if Id read it then, and I said "Yes right away because I knew (because Neil had told me already) that the story was set in contemporary London and the Caribbean and that the characters were Afro Londoners, Jamaicans, Africans, Cockneys, and all sorts...and those kind of voices are right up my street. Thats why its me reading this and not Ian McKellen (a lovely man by the way, loved his Gandalf). Ive just done yet another series of the Lenny Henry Show and if you want to know more about me, go to http://www.lennyhenry.com/ and get the full skinny from there. Neil Gaiman is a DON!
(That means, not only am I his friend, but also IM A HUGE FAN!)
Lenny Henry
2005
Available in audio:
0 7553 2937 6
CD
Published 20/09/2005
?49.95