Little Britain

royfromaus | 00:38 Wed 10th Jun 2020 | ChatterBank

28 Answers

I often wondered how Williams and Lucas got away with some of their characters.
Seems time has caught up with them.

https://news.sky.com/story/little-britain-removed-from-iplayer-and-netflix-after-blackface-criticism-12003558

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237SJ

Best Answer

I always thought that Matt Lucus got away with it because he himself is an ethnic minority. Same as Sasha Baron Cohen with his Ali G character. In any case, luckily I have the DVDs of Little Britain and Come Fly With Me and will continue to enjoy them.

18:54 Wed 10th Jun 2020

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choux

roy, I think the acid test is whether or not you enjoyed their portrayals. I suspect that Lucas and Walliams will be neither surpised nor disappointed by this decision as they previously have said/inferred that their use of black faces was not de rigueur.

We now have a large, new can of worms to sort through. Will anyone be permitted to blacken their face in the name of entertainment or is it dependent upon "in the best possible taste" as Kenny used to say?

Will some people be offended if anyone blackens up to play, for example, Othello or Al Johnson? What happens when Joe Public dons a full Rastifarian costume to attend a fancy dress party?

I still remember The George Mitchell Minstrels on the box, hey ho.

-- answer removed --

choux

Is it to the Beeb's shame they did not pull the programme because it may have offended people with disabilities watching Lucas's wheelchair-bound character?

Many comedy sketches are based on specific types such as The Two Ronnies' characters of workmen, people with stutters, different class structures, urban v rural any of which could be classed as offending some people. It is all done in the name of humour but the trouble is some acts seem loathe to draw any barrier to how far they will go. It is a very subjective area.

david small

You will only find funny, things that are politically correct. Dictating Humour is the business of the left.
They are ever vigilant.

ummmm

You have to know your audience. We pay a fee for the BBC so they should really try and appeal to all tastes.

Some people like being offended. They are TVs equivalent of curtain twitchers.

emmie

the wonder is how they got away with it for so long, they weren't funny, not in my opinion

fiction-factory

>Blacks being sensitive promotes their objectives, which is a takeover of our society.
Err, have you got a link for that?
Just blacks- not Asians and Minority Ethnics then- or by black do you mean non-white

Maydup

Its a great relief that Little Britain has been removed from iplayer, it was awful then and awful now.

Choux - I think most of us have been offended by people blacking up for many years now, its not a new can of worms. Why would anyone dream of blacking up to play Othello?

Mexican18

Why not? It's called acting !
Could only people with a hunch back play Quasimodo?

andy-hughes

If you write or say anything about anything, there is a potential for someone somewhere to be offended.

With that simple fact in mind, society needs to lay down some broad parameters about what is actually offensive, and what is a small attentionattention-seeking minority looking for a new bandwagon to jump on.

iluvmargie

They take the pee out of white people as well, don't they??

pixie374

Blackfacing is no more or less insulting than pretending men are women if they change their clothes. Unfashionable now, but we have such a long, long way to go.

JimF

Will the famous "Going for an English" sketch by the Goodness Gracious Me team also be removed, or is that somehow not racist?

What about 'Allo! 'Allo!? That made fun of people using racial stereotypes.

They still show episodes of Jim Bowen's Bullseye where he regularly does a "comic" black man, Japanese man, even a bad impression of Ghandi.

Or Carry On Up the Jungle or Carry On Up the Khyber, where Bernard Bresslaw played an African "native" and an Aghani warlord?

Is there actually a line and, if so, where do you draw it?

237SJ