Rising to the Surface

'Moving and honest' OBSERVER

Lenny Henry

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571368808
• Year: 2022

The rise and fall and triumphant rise from the ashes of Lenny Henry during the 80s and 90s.

'Moving and ebullient' Daily Telegraph
'Relayed with characteristic exuberance and self-deprecation' Guardian

Rising to the Surface traces Lenny Henry's career through the 80s and 90s. The 16-year-old who won a talent competition, now has to navigate his way through the seas of professional comedy, learning his craft through sheer graft and hard work.

We follow Lenny through a period of great creativity - prize-winning tv programmes, summer seasons across Britain, the starring role in a Hollywood film, and stand-up gigs in New York. But with each rise there is a fall, the most traumatic being the death of his mother. But by the end of the book he has been able to rise through a sea of troubles and breaks out to the surface to accept the Golden Rose of Montreaux for his work in television.

Table of contents

• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue
• 1: What Happened Next
• 2: Beginning to Rise
• 3: Going Solo
• 4: Dawn
• 5: Succeeding Upwards
• 6: Rising . . . Rising . . .
• 7: The Fall
• 8: Crucial Years
• 9: Picking Up the Pieces
• Epilogue
• Down in the Basement with Othello
• Acknowledgements
• Illustrations
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright