SIDE STEP
Comedy legend Lenny Henry has turned down Strictly Come Dancing repeatedly – despite showing off his moves in new drama
Comedian jokes about his dancing ability as character deals with difficult issues
FUNNYMAN Sir Lenny Henry has repeatedly turned down Strictly Come Dancing despite showing off his moves in a new drama.
The Comic Relief star will appear in a flashback role in the upcoming Netflix drama Missing You.
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He plays Clint Donovan, who was mysteriously murdered over a decade before.
Rosalind Eleazar takes on the role of his detective daughter Kat Donovan whose fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) also goes missing shortly after her dad's death.
Lenny revealed he was asked to dance in one of the flashback scenes, saying: "There is a legendary dancing scene in which I can't dance at all [laughs].
"They keep asking me to be on Strictly, but I’d literally let every black person in Britain down."
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Jokingly berating himself, in a Jamaican accent, he added: “You mean you can't dance at all? You can't keep time?"
Lenny continued: "We made the crew do the dance, they didn’t want to but we insisted. It was a lot of fun."
Kat's life is turned upside down when her fiancé Josh, who disappeared 11 years ago, suddenly reappears.
At the same time, Kat delves into her father’s (Lenny) murder, and digs up secrets from the past as she faces one of the most traumatic and vulnerable moments in her life.
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Rosalind who plays Kat said: "Kat was a daddy’s girl who was much closer to her father than she was her mother.
Maya Jama stuns in tiny black mini dress as she makes Comic Relief presenting debut alongside Sir Lenny Henry and Paddy McGuinness
"She idolises her father in a sort of unhealthy way, which is partly why this story works so well.
"She just can’t see certain things for how they were. Whereas her mum isn’t like that. Her mum is more of a realist.
"Since her dad died, Kat and her mum have got a lot closer. She has a huge amount of respect for her mum but again her mum is also not a person that wants to sit down and go over old ground about Clint’s murder."
Lenny revealed that he channeled his own experiences when playing the role, relating to Kat's search for her father.
He said: "I was raised by my dad, but he wasn’t my birth father.
"It means I can relate to Kat in wanting to find out more about her dad.
"I understand why Kat doesn’t know anything because when I was growing up, parents didn’t really talk to you about anything."
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Missing You will be available from 1 January to stream on Netflix
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