Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor and writer, won a BAFTA for Mr. Loverman, played Morgan Jones in The Walking Dead, and wrote Save Me.
On the island
Eight records
For my mum, Phyllis. Touch the Hem of His Garment by Gene Martin. When I was at home with my mum, me, my brother and my mum, we lived mostly around the church, around the Pentecostal church… Jean Martin was one of the men that made that drop [my mother's religious front] and Muhammad Ali was the other.
It completely blew my mind. It was the beat, it was the look of them, the mix of them just looked like me and my mates, and literally everything changed. It was the start of understanding myself and realizing who I was as a black boy growing into a black man in England at that particular point.
I couldn't possibly be on any desert island. I couldn't be in… any situation where I'm playing music and not have Stevie Wonder.
Artie Shaw and His Orchestra with Billie Holiday
This is the song that my wife Giselle would have played at our wedding.
For Me FormidableFavourite
For me for me formidable [by Charles Aznavour] — it's the family song. When it's played in my house, we all sing.
I love Oasis and I think Noel Gallagher is one of the greatest songwriters that there has ever been and Oasis were a band that I shared with my kids.
Without question the most beautiful song that has ever been sung.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:13What impact do you think [Mr. Loverman] has had with audiences and what feedback have you had?
on one level I don't know, um because it's early days, um but I can only kind of answer in relation to the responses I've had from people stopping me in the street or people sending letters or messages through friends… I think overwhelmingly… are people who find a way of saying thank you for telling the story, for I suppose seeing them, seeing their story, particularly West Indian men of a certain age, or the sisters or mothers of men of a certain age, who may have lost someone or may well have not responded to someone reaching out in the way that they now wish they had… Some people just want to say… thank you and they don't want to say anything more.
Presenter asks
8:03Tell me a little bit more about [your mother Phyllis's] story. She was a nurse who came to Britain from Trinidad and initially settled in Nottingham. How much do you know about her story and tell me about her as a person?
It's weird because I was 11, nearly 12, when we lost her. So a large chunk of what I know about her is what different family members have told me. I was kind of too young to kind of know for myself, even though I was a real mummy's boy. I used to curl up behind her, lay my head on her thighs, behind her legs… And she came to England from Trinidad on her own to be a nurse in Nottingham. She saved up for years and years to pay back her fare… and then also pay for my dad to come over…
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Because there's no writer like her, because she tells a story of people who look like me like no one else has, and she gives us class and sophistication and nuance and complication that's outside of our relationship to white people... and I don't know another writer who could do that to me.
The luxury
Keep trying to learn and I don't. I give up and do something else... I think if I was on a desert island, I would have so much time to myself after I've built the hut and set the fire pit and put the food on. I could finally get to a situation where I could play some of the songs I'd like to play to myself.
Presenter asks
15:49What do you remember about [the time when your mother died]?
I stopped talking… I had the view of the back of my brother's head again, 'cause he kind of stepped in front of me and kind of looked out for me… Social services got involved because it was just me and him now… Me and my brother had a talk. Wasn't much of a talk because we kind of agreed with each other that we didn't really want to go to America… we didn't want to leave our mum alone here.
Presenter asks
21:19How did you feel about going into foster care?
I was sorry my house was going to be gone. In fact, I wrote a letter to the council, and I sent it to the local newspaper, the South London Press, venting my anger at my home being taken away from us and talking about how important it was not just to the kids living there, but the kids who had left, who had no place to come back to. They take it at your pace, so you decide when you're ready to go and visit them, you decide when you're ready to go and stay overnight, you decide when you're ready to go and stay for the weekend. And then finally, they get to a point of kind of saying, 'Are you ready to move in?'… And my foster mother turned the house that she had fostered me into into a privately run satellite children's home.
Presenter asks
25:55How did you get into drama? Was it through school?
There was a theatre in education group that came to our school that did a play that was around apartheid. And one of the things that you had to do was put your hand up if you wanted to go up there and act out a scenario with them… and for some reason, I put my hand up… I just fancied it and didn't really think much more about it until I was hanging out with a bunch of friends in a certain group… among them was a couple of girls who one of them I quite liked and she wanted to be an actress… and she was going to go and audition for this summer play at the cockpit theater in Marlebone. And I, again, I got no idea what possessed me, but I went down and auditioned… and I got offered a place… when I was doing the play… the choreographer… stopped me when I came out. She said, 'Lenny, you're going to do this again.' … And in my head, it was like she said, 'you're good enough to be on the team.' And that resonated with me… the most important place that I landed was at the Lyric Youth Theatre under the kind of guidance of Lucy Parker… where I met my then-girlfriend, now wife, at 17.
Presenter asks
28:54Your play Trial and Error won a national playwriting competition and was published by Faber and Faber when you were 17. What was it about?
It was a trial set up in a kids' home. Something had been nicked in a kid's home… the kids set up a trial to find out who did it. And in the process, kind of put their kids' home and the childcare system on trial… I wrote it longhand… and then I put an advert in the classifieds of the South London press for someone to type it up… and she had to phone me up every now and then… to ask me certain words because I'd written it kind of colloquially… and then I sent it into the National Youth Theatre Texaco playwriting competition… And it was a joint kind of win with Ed Kemp… and we won the kind of award for most promising playwrights under 21.
“I grew up knowing it was not a taboo subject, but that she didn't leave any room for us to miss him. My kids now find it quite difficult to comprehend, but I didn't grow up with any real sense of an absence of a father.”
“I didn't grow up feeling or thinking I was poor. I mean she was incredibly proud. She used to say, no one needs to know how many shirts you have, as long as your shirts are clean every time you walk outside the house.”
“It was the start of understanding myself and realizing who I was as a black boy growing into a black man in England at that particular point. And it felt like everything I had to say, the specials were saying it.”
“It meant trying to conjure the truth. It was trying to bring something to life that wasn't there and make it real.”
“One of the things that I grew up with when we were in the kids home is not letting people know that you're in a kids home because most people's perception of being in a kids home is not good. It's at one end Oliver twist and at the other end abuse … I just didn't want to give them anything more to play with.”
“I still want to be challenged. I still want the fear of getting it wrong and the joy of getting it right or some way towards getting it right. I feel like I've got some skills and I want to test myself against the big parts. … I don't know if I can do this … and the 'I don't know if I can do this' is what I'm in search of.”