First tour in 4 years (but will he stay at Premier Inns?)

Lenny Henry is to embark on his first major tour in four years in the spring.

He will perform at least 69 dates of his new Cradle To Grave show, about his lifelong love of music. Henry even began in showbusiness by impersonating Stevie Wonder in the mid-Seventies.

The new tour marks Henry’s return to the stand-up stage after 2007’s Where You From and follows his award-winning stint playing Othello.

He has been trying out new material for the tour at unannounced appearances on the comedy circuit. In a recent blog entry, he wrote: ‘It's a very hard thing working on new material – Seinfeld took 18 months to get a new hour of stuff together and I’d say that's about right. You have to be so brave and throw so much away.

‘I’m doing an hour tonight and if I get 10 or 15 minutes out [of] that, I’ll be happy. Which means I have to be a real stoic and ignore things that don't go well... it's worth it in the end , but incredibly labour intensive.’

The new tour has been co-written with his long-term collaborator Jon Canter, whose credits also include being Fry & Laurie’s script editor, working on the cartoon version of Mr Bean and co-writing the sitcom Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful.

Cradle To Grave will start with a week’s run-in at the Newbury Corn Exchange from January 17, ending at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on May 15. Click here for full dates.

Published: 13 Sep 2010