Lenny Henry's Race Through Comedy - Season 1
Season 1
Episodes
Sitcom
Starting with the hugely successful sitcom Love Thy Neighbour, the series looks at some of the well-meaning attempts television made to embrace the changing face of the nation during the 1970s.
The advent of Channel 4 was a key catalyst in bringing diversity to UK homes during the 1980s and into the 90s, with shows such as No Problem!, The Cosby Show and Desmond's.
The film concludes with a look at the influence diversity and multiculturalism has had on society on comedy through shows such as Phoneshop, People Just Do Nothing and Chewing Gum.
Stand Up
Starting with early pioneers such as Charlie Williams and Josh White, black men who braved the tough northern men's working clubs in the 1960s and 70s, the show also marks the start of Lenny Henry's own career.
The show acknowledges the undeniable influence of the African-American cabaret club circuit as a training ground for a host of black comedians including the great Richard Pryor.
Buoyed by the work of Pryor and Eddie Murphy in the 1980s, a new generation of British comedians including Curtis Walker, Angie Le Mar and Stephen K. Amos started to emerge. By the start of the millennium, black and Asian comedians were commonplace.
There are also contributions from Shazia Mirza, Shappi Khorsandi and Gina Yashere on the challenges of being a woman of colour in stand-up.
Sketch
Beginning with Lenny's prominence as a versatile performer and creator of characters, the film features great archive from Tiswas, Three of a Kind and Lenny's own shows. Curtis Walker and Llewella Gideon talk about the legacy of beloved 90s sketch show The Real McCoy, which also provided a platform for the late Felix Dexter. Meera Syal talks to Lenny about Goodness Gracious Me, British television's first Asian sketch show, as well as uncovering the secrets behind the success of The Kumars at Number 42. Lenny also speaks to Jocelyn Jee Esien about pranking the public as a member of Three Non Blondes, as well as talking about her own show Little Miss Jocelyn.
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Hudson & Rex
Detective Charlie Hudson, a cunning Major Crimes detective for the St. John's Police Department, teams up with an unusual partner – Rex, a former-K9 German Shepherd, whose heightened senses keep Charlie hot on the trail of his suspects. Together, they investigate puzzling crimes, from a kidnapping which reveals a much larger conspiracy at play to an art theft murder which runs deep into the world of high society. With Charlie's deft detective work and Rex's keen canine senses, this crime-fighting pair is unstoppable.
Daredevil: Born Again
Matt Murdock finds himself on a collision course with Wilson Fisk when their past identities begin to emerge.
Red Eye
After attending a medical conference in Beijing and coming frighteningly close to dying in a car crash, Dr. Matthew Nolan arrives home and is immediately arrested at London's Heathrow Airport. Exhausted and confused, Nolan is accused of the murder of a woman who was in the car he crashed. Despite his protests that he was driving alone, Nolan is set to return to China to face charges.
DC Hana Li is the no-nonsense London officer charged with accompanying Nolan back to Beijing. Her resentment for this assignment, and of Nolan himself, is immediate. However, in flight, when a first death occurs, DC Li begins to suspect foul play. Further deaths confirm that Nolan is in danger, and after a call from MI5, Hana finds herself embroiled in an escalating conspiracy.
The Dry
The Dry follows Shiv Sheridan who returns to Dublin after years of partying in London, sober and full of good intentions - but being back with her family makes staying on ‘the dry' much harder than she expected. As Shiv tries to navigate this new phase of her life, so must her family...and they all have issues they don't want to face.