Danny and the Human Zoo

I guess this is a loose biography of Lenny Henry and his early start in showbiz.

People forget that he has been on television as soon as he left school and I remember seeing him in the ITV sitcom The Fosters in the mid 70s.

Here we see the teenage Danny Fearon (Kascion Franklin) the funny kid at school cracking jokes and doing impressions but is also bullied by racists, has to deal with difficult MCs in clubs and later appearing with the Black & White Minstrels which Lenny actually did and still feels guilty about.

This one off film starts out brightly with the music of the era and the art deco. We see his larger than life mother who rules the household and his more introverted father (Lenny Henry) who works in a factory.

I think the film goes a little off course as it deals with dramatic issues to add substance to the film such as his mother's affair and when Danny starts to drink too much and is unhappy with performing with the minstrels.

Kascion Franklin gives a good performance but the film loses sparkle half way through.

Made for TV movie which is better than many big-budget cinema movies.

A good storyline, well acted and displayed an authentic 70's vibe.

Funny, playful, sad and interesting, a pleasure to watch.

The only criticism is that it was disappointing it ended when it did, a sequel please!

This tells the story of Danny, back in the 70's things were very very different. We see poor Danny beaten up in school, and asked 'do you think you're funny.' Clearly he was, once he lands a Summer job at the Queen Mary club he's soon on stage and making people laugh. There he meets the beautiful Irish barmaid 'Bridget.' Danny is pushed by people who aim to exploit his talent for money, and he soon ends up on New faces, but problems closer to home follow him, an uneasy relationship between his parents, domestic violence in his family, and racism.

This had me in stitches, it was so funny, his impressions, the Jamaican humour, supplied especially by his mum Myrtle, but with every excellent comedy, there is always the darker side. Dee Dee his sister talks about racism, and Danny himself is the victim of it throughout. The 70's was so different, can't believe how accepting people were of things.

Some wonderful moments between Danny and his mum, Danny and his dad. Standout performance, obviously Kascion Franklin, who was outstanding as Danny, what a future that young guy has ahead of him. Cecilia Noble also put in a magical performance as his mum Myrtle, her Jamaican humour had me in tears, as did the emotional side we saw of Myrtle, fantastic.

Penned by national treasure Lenny Henry, is there nothing this guy isn't magical at, after this and the Syndicate I'm glad to see more of him recently.

Funny, moving, I want more dramas along these lines please, stunning!! 10/10

Growing up in Dudley, West Midlands in the mid-1970s was no picnic. Despite an obvious talent for mimicry, Danny (Kascion Franklin) has to cope with almost daily racist insults as well as sporadic attacks of bullying from the local skin-heads. The only way he can cope with life is to mooch around with his mates in Dudley Zoo or the castle.

Such is the basic scenario for Lenny Henry's comedy-drama, based loosely on his own life. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he has been brought up to respect his mother (Cecilia Noble) and to tolerate his father (Lenny Henry) who seems much more interested in watching cricket than fulfilling a parental role. The story follows a familiar rags-to-riches path with Danny winning a local talent show, passing the auditions for the television talent program NEW FACES, and then coming third in the grand final. As a result he is offered a contract for a summer season by impresario James Broughton (Richard Wilson) to join the Black and White Minstrels for a summer season in Blackpool. However, life as an African-Caribbean in an black-face troupe proves not quite what Danny envisaged.

Destiny Ekaragha's production contains some telling flashbacks, revealing Danny's state of mind. His brother-in-law Larrington (Peter Bankole) keeps appearing to remind Danny that he is somehow not a "true" family member. By avoiding a nine-to-five job and looking for success on television, he has transformed himself into an outcast, someone reluctant to pursue the nine-to-five live in local factories. Yet the production asks to reflect on who exactly Danny's family are - in a telling sequence set in a local club, he discovers an unsavory truth about his mother's past.

As an entertainer, Danny is obviously extremely talented, yet through his mimicry of familiar television figures of the time - Bruce Forsyth, Tommy Cooper, and Muhammad Ali - we are left to reflect on whether Danny himself is not doing precisely the same thing: mimicking what the white majority expect of a comedian to ensure success. The regular joke about his performing impressions "in color" makes the point. In the end he realizes that has to cultivate a stage persona based on his own identity, not on a false identity imposed on him.

Shot throughout in washed-out color redolent of the Seventies, DANNY AND THE HUMAN ZOO contains some comic moments, yet reminds us of the enduring current of racism that still permeates mainstream British society. African-Caribbeans are no longer be the butt of such insults; it is the Syrians, Afghans, and others from the Middle Eastern regions that have to suffer. There are one or two unconvincingly staged moments: for example, the Black and White Minstrel Show, which looks as if it is being staged in a small provincial theater rather than one of the main provincial stages on Britain's No. 1 touring circuit in Blackpool. But perhaps we can forgive the odd awkward moment in a thoroughly entertaining and pertinent piece.