Lenny Henry wins best actor at Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards

Denzel Washington won a Tony award for playing the role on Broadway and Henry admitted: If Id thought about that going in, I wouldnt have left the house.

Previous Critics' Circle winners include Sir Derek Jacobi, Simon Russell Beale, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Sir Ian McKellen.

Asked if serious drama was his true calling, Henry said: There is a sense of wrong ladder against wrong building syndrome. I love stand-up; I know Im not everybodys cup of tea, but who is?

But its a bit like a big finger from heaven going, Youve done that for 37 years, you bought your mum a house, there is no shame in it but this is the thing you should be doing. Focus on this, Len.

A text and a dressing room and a few weeks to explore is what I love. Comedys great and very difficult to do, but Ive really felt at home doing this."

Henry has been a fixture on British television since appearing on New Faces in 1975, aged just 16. He appeared in Tiswas, the childrens Saturday morning series, Three of a Kind and The Lenny Henry Show, and latterly has been the face of Comic Relief.

Although he moved into straight acting in the 1990s, in the BBC series Chef! and Hope and Glory, the announcement of his Shakespearean debut in a 2009 production of Othello was regarded in some quarters as a gimmick.

Yet he proved the doubters wrong and the production transferred to the West End. Henry returned to Shakespeare in 2011, playing Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors.

Fences, directed by Paulette Randall, represented a new challenge. The three-hour play was, in Henrys own words, a mammoth undertaking for any actor, let alone one with no formal drama training.

Henry appeared in every scene. He explained: It has as many words as King Lear. With Othello you could go to the loo six times and have a cup of tea. With Fences you had to make sure every drop had been wrung out of you at the beginning of the play because you were not going to have a chance to go anywhere until the interval. It was very hard work."

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Lenny Henry wins best actor at Critics' Circle Theatre Awards