Lenny Henry set to film his acclaimed play August In England
- Lenny Henry is adapting his critically acclaimed play August In England for the cinema, the comedian has revealed
- "I'm going to try and write a film of August In England because lots of people all over the country kept saying when are you coming up here?" Henry told Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio show
- The comedian has also revealed that his children's book The Boy With Wings is being turned into a stage play
Lenny Henry is turning his acclaimed one-man play August In England into a film, the comedian has revealed.
Henry's playwriting debut, the production was rapturously received when he performed it at the Bush Theatre in London in May, attracting five star notices in the Guardian and Telegraph among others.
In the comedic drama, the stand-up plays August Henderson, a member of the Windrush generation who has built a life in West Bromwich over more than half a century, only to suddenly find himself threatened with deportation to a Jamaica he can't remember.
"I'm going to try and write a film of August In England because lots of people all over the country kept saying when are you coming up here?" Henry told Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio show.
He added that he was yet to decide whether he would simply film the stage version and screen that in cinemas, "an NT Live version of it. Or make a feature film of it like Shirley Valentine or something."
The Evening Standard said August In England fused Henry's "well-honed comedy skills with the emotional range he's uncovered since reinventing himself as a dramatic stage actor", while the Guardian praised its "bountiful supply of jokes, accompanied by near constant reggae".
Henry was joining Evans to promote his new ITV drama, Three Little Birds, based upon his mother's experiences of arriving in Britain from Jamaica in 1957; the ITV tribute Lenny Henry One Of A Kind, featuring interviews with Ben Elton, Richard Curtis and Whoopi Goldberg among others and his latest children's book, The Boy With Wings: Clash Of The Superkids, the third in the series about Tunde Wilkinson, an ordinary boy who also happens to be a superhero.
Speaking to Zoe Ball on her Radio 2 breakfast show earlier in the week, he disclosed that the first The Boy With Wings book is set to be adapted for the stage.
"We've been asked by Polka, the children's theatre company [based in Wimbledon], and they're brilliant, they want to do a live stage version of the first book" he told Ball. "So I'm so excited, The Boy With Wings is going to be on stage!"