Page 8 - Urban Kapital New MAY JUNE 2020 ISSUE

BECAUSE I WAS A BLACK GUY - AND THEY TOLD ME
THE GIRLS DIDN’T DANCE!
By: Kia Fullerton

Wonder what the girls think now?

Sir Lenny Henry revealed in a podcast with Louis
Theroux how, as a young man, some girls would not
dance with him because he was “a black guy”.
The 61- year old comedian, recalled going out to
discos whilst growing up in Dudley, West Midlands,
where he would try to slow dance with girls.

He told the ‘Grounded With Louis Theroux’ podcast:
“If you wanted to meet members of the opposite sex
you’ve got to go to a place where they might be and
where they might be was St Thomas’ disco next to
the church.

“You would spend nearly all evening ignoring them
and then in the last five minutes, there would be this
rush to the dance floor to try and slow dance with a
girl.”

Sir Lenny Henry added: “I would ask anyone to dance,
I didn’t want to be left out and my friends would be
dancing with girls [but] some girls wouldn’t dance
with me because I was a black guy.”

Louis Theroux asked him how he knew, to which he
replied: “They would say.”

Winner of BAFTA’s Television Special Award in 2016,
the comedian also told Theroux he had to keep his
comedic impressions hidden from his family.

Sir Lenny said “Making ‘wise jokes’ as a child lead
to a slap round the head.” He added, “There was no
wise-cracking from a child in our house because
that was seen as being cheeky and overstepping the
mark”.

Grounded with Louis Theroux is available on BBC
Sounds every Monday and on BBC Radio 4 on
Wednesdays at 8pm.

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