Knocking on Hollywood's door

Richard Blackwood is young, black and flash; he's in the charts, on the stage and on the box. He has every confidence that one day he'll be on a screen at a multiplex near you.

And no wonder. In his erstwhile stepsister Naomi Campbell he's seen global überstardom sprout on his own Streatham doorstep. He always knew that Naomi was going to be famous. "Everybody who knew her knew that," he says. And he knows that he's going to Hollywood. "I believe that I will make it in Hollywood. I believe that I've got the talent." It's that simple.

Now that Lenny Henry is a bit old and tired and mainstream, Blackwood is the black British comedian in pole position. The question is, has he got what it takes?

We already know that he hasn't got what it takes to be a pop star. After two singles and an album last year, his record company pulled the plug on an expensive career, and his armour-plated confidence took a knock. "But it was a good knock. My confidence lies in my comedy, but when I had this success with my first single I was thinking that, maybe, everything I touch turns to gold." He adds: "Luckily for me, I was able to stand back and say, 'Hang on a minute, is this truly what you are?'"

So now he's doing his first stand-up show in nearly four years, which comes to the Haymarket Theatre on Sunday. A huge chunk of the show is about sex: premature ejaculation, favoured coital positions, why black men don't go down. "When you're live it's no holds barred," he explains. "I let people know that this is raw. I always do a check. 'Any 15-year-olds in the house? You're going to grow up quick tonight.'"

I put it to him that his ethnic origin has been a help to him. "There are times when I used to sit there thinking if I was white I'd be there quicker." But he's proud of the fact that he's made it on his own terms. His parents separated when he was small, just as he has from the mother of his eight-month-old son Keaun. He was brought up by his grandparents, who arrived on the Windrush from Jamaica. For two years he lived in Sweden with his mother.

I represent the street people, the people who never went to drama school or never had great opportunities. I went to a normal school. I saw normal, day-to-day things, and I know that I speak for the majority that have that same sort of life. My thing is, don't limit yourself because of what you don't know or haven't been through."

Thus, at 21, he took up stand-up after graduating in business studies. His first gig was in Covent Garden. "I did exceptionally well. It was a five-minute set. And that was it. I decided I would never do stand-up again, I was so scared."

But he did, "for no other reason than to break America and to go down the path of the Richard Pryors and the Eddie Murphys". Everything, you sense, is part of a grand plan - the VJing on MTV, The Richard Blackwood Show. There will soon be a BBC sitcom called Ed Stone Is Dead, about a man who keeps it secret from his friends that he is actually a member of the living dead.

He doubtless sees sitcom as a nursery slope for the black run of Hollywood. Then there's a film deal and another with Fox TV. "If the Fox TV show works, then at least Richard Black-wood has got a name out there to go on to film." And the final fruition of the plan is to meet his hero as an equal. "When I meet Eddie Murphy, he's going to know who I am."