Anthony Ekundayo Lennon: my genes are white but I’m black

A theatre director who has won funds meant for ‘people of colour’ has admitted his parents and grandparents were all white
The picture Anthony Lennon uses on his Twitter profile
The picture Anthony Lennon uses on his Twitter profile

One of the leading lights in British black theatre was wrestling with the question of what makes a person black last night — after it emerged that he has previously described himself as white.

Anthony Ekundayo Lennon has benefited from taxpayer support to aid his development as a black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) leader in the arts. But last week some black thespians expressed disquiet that an apparently white man had taken a black person’s place on a Bame scheme.

Lennon was named last year as one of four “theatre practitioners of colour” who had been awarded a paid two-year residential traineeship as part of an Arts Council England-funded programme. Recently he was an assistant director on Britain’s first all-black production of Guys and