Lenny Henry: Knighthood 'like being filled with lemonade'

Henry started out working on the Black And White Minstrel Show before getting his big break doing impressions on talent show New Faces. Credit: PA

Lenny Henry has said being offered a knighthood was "a lovely feeling" and"like being filled with lemonade".

The comic told BBC Radio 2's Chris Evans that the honour, expected to beofficially confirmed on Friday, was "wonderful".

He said: "It was lovely, it was a lovely feeling, it was like being filledwith lemonade for 10 or 15 minutes."

Henry, a mainstay of Comic Relief for years, said his knighthood was for "services to charity", adding: "That's not just me, that's everybody that works for Comic Relief."

Henry, who grew up in Dudley in the West Midlands, started out working on the controversial Black And White Minstrel Show before getting his big break doing impressions on talent show New Faces.

His career as a stand-up comic led to him joining children's TV show Tiswasalongside Chris Tarrant, and its late-night adult sister show OTT before he went on to work on BBC1's Three Of A Kind.

Henry, who separated from his wife Dawn French in 2010 after 25 years of marriage, hit the headlines last year when he called for ring-fenced funding to promote ethnically-diverse talent in the media.