ABSTRACT
Although the most common stereotypes of black people held by nonblacks in Britain is of them as ‘performers’, the images that almost invariably come to mind are those of athlete, musician, or dancer.1 There are few perceptions or stereotypes of black people as comics, which in part is explained by the relatively small number of blacks in the country, their infrequent forays into the realm of public comedy, as well as the general marginalisation of comedy as an area of interest. Consequently it comes as no surprise to learn that there is virtually nothing written about professional black comics in Britain, especially black stand up comics. The main work that has been done about black people and comedy is about ‘racist’ humour; there is also some work on blacks in situation comedies (Gray, 1986; Husband, 1988; Jones and Dungey, 1983; Pines, 1992). And, of course, a few biographies of Lenny Henry. Where humour and comedy have been analysed by non-blacks, it has almost exclusively been about non-blacks and has been generally indifferent to the black presence (for example, Powell and Paton, 1988).
