Sir Lenny Henry motivated by 'appalling' Windrush scandal to tell mum's story
It was the TV set catering truck, dishing out Jamaican chicken, rice and fried dumplings to the “most diverse cast and crew he’d ever seen”, that filled Sir Lenny Henry’s heart with joy.
As they filmed his personal post-Windrush drama, inspired by the stories of his late mum Winifred, he knew he really was telling everyone’s story. The 65-year-old actor, comedian and writer says: “You know, you start off with a personal story and then as you write it becomes about humans. It became inclusive to everybody, whether they’re black or white or brown. All our stories are universal.”
Three Little Birds, named after the Bob Marley song, is inspired by Winifred Henry, who emigrated from Jamaica in 1957, the year before he was born. The six-part ITV series, which lands on screens next Sunday, follows three women who travel from Jamaica to the UK - gregarious sisters Leah and Chantrelle and their sister-in-law to be, Hosanna.
All have very different reasons for coming to the UK, but ultimately they have to come together to overcome racism and sexism and forge their own paths. It is a heartfelt show, with big issues and meaty plots, but with Lenny’s hallmark humour weaved in throughout. Lenny, who was mentored by top screenwriter Russell T Davies, was driven to pen the show in the wake of the Windrush scandal.
Sir Lenny with partner Lisa Makin (Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Russell T Davies (Dave Benett/Getty Images)He says: “We're in a situation where one's nationality and Caribbeanness is being weaponised to send people back to their home, even though they've lived here and have become British. The Windrush scandal has been appalling and it's hurt quite a lot of people.
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“I did a ten-minute Windrush film short where I played a character who lived through quite a lot of racism and I kept thinking, there’s more to say. The stories that my mum and my auntie and uncles and my brothers and sisters have told me about coming to Britain in the 1950s, I thought, these are a wonderful start to a new telling of arrival stories and survival stories.
“How do you overcome this idea of chopping yourself off from your country of origin and starting in a new country of origin? And I thought, it's relatable. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, you can relate to moving from one place to another place for survival. It’s not just a story about five Jamaicans in a room in Dudley. It's all our stories, because we were here, we've been here and we're still here.”
While filming, with a cast including rising stars Yazmin Belo, Saffron Coomber and Rochelle Neil as the leading ladies, cast and crew brought in pictures of their parents getting married. Lenny laughs: “Everybody wore a white suit. Everybody had gloves on, everybody had a sticky-out shirt. Everybody wore a really long veil.
“I tried to get as much of that in as possible. When they came over on the boat, they were not just in their finest, but probably in their church clothes. They look like they either dressed up for the picture or they dressed up for the journey. You want to look nice because you’re in a new country. You want people to look at you and go, okay, these are decent people.”
With food a huge part of Caribbean culture, Lenny was also keen to include as much of that as possible in the drama. He says: “You will see curried goat and rice and cooked down chicken and gungo peas and rice. Soup is a big thing in our culture.”
Gleefully breaking into a Jamaican accent, he says: “We call it Saturday soup, even though we eat it on a Thursday sometimes! You just eat it and it’s good for you, that’s all you need to know. And when you eat it, you have to sleep for two or three days to recover.”
Lenny with his mother in 1975 (Getty Images)Lenny, who is hoping for a second series, was careful to bring comedy and contrast to the drama, though it is largely about the burdens that generation had to overcome.
He says: “Yes there are times when you get beaten, when you run up against a brick wall, but there are times of humour. There are moments when people have snappy comebacks and they say funny things. There are moments when people are very religious and there are moments when people are really rude. But this is life. And nobody is just one thing.
“Hosanna (Belo) is a kaleidoscope of emotions and morality. Leah (Neil) is more of a doer than sayer and Chantrelle (Coomber) just wants to be a superstar. She feels like, ‘Why not me?’ Well because it’s 1957 and we don't have that yet. They've all got that to overcome. Women were not allowed to buy a house on their own without their husband’s signature. They rarely got promoted above a certain paygrade.”
In the drama, he tackles the Windrush spirit as people battled with staying in the face of adversity. He says: “What you see growing up is somebody who talks about back home or not, who cooks back home food and yet stays where she is.
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“I saw my mum weeping and weeping for probably two days straight when her mum died. She couldn't go back to Jamaica to go to the funeral because she didn't have the money. So I think with a lot of people that came here, the intent was ‘We'll be here for a short while, and then we'll go back and start again’. And a lot of people couldn't go back because it was tough to make that money.
Three Little Birds starts on ITV on Sunday October 22 (ITV)“They had to stay and get through it. Overcoming is a massive thing. And it's not about bravery, it's about circumstance, actually. You overcome because that's what you got to do. Not because you're John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. If you don't overcome, how are you going to live?”
He recalls from the first script read through, there was enough energy and adrenaline in the room to “power the national grid”. He says: “You don’t get that very often, but it was amazing. Jokes landed, people cried, it was lovely.”
Rochelle, who plays Leah, says: “Working with Lenny was empowering. It can be intimidating because you’re playing a character inspired by someone’s mum, but Lenny was really generous. He gave pep talks and said, ‘Go for it’.”
She adds: “I'm a granddaughter of the Windrush generation so it was eerily uncanny how close the stories were. My grandmother came over with her sister and a friend. But I hope people don’t just see it as a Windrush story or a Black story. I hope they see it as a British story and watch it as a collective, rather than as ‘us and them’.”
Lenny, who has spoken in the past of the difficult relationship he had with his mother, adds: “Growing up in those times wasn’t easy you know. Our parents weren’t easy. They weren’t sitting down and having chats, they didn't talk to you about stuff. My parents were very close minded about things. Near the end of their lives, they wanted to talk about stuff and it was really interesting - and you’ve got to listen. So I think, talk to your mum and dad. Get all these stories down, because they’re worth telling.”
What does he hope the audience will take from this piece? He says: “I hope that through the magic of television, they are allowed to walk in people's shoes and to perhaps see another point of view. And maybe they'll understand some things. That's what I hope.”
Three Little Birds starts on Sunday 22 October, ITV1 8pm and ITVX.
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