TV

‘Little Britain’ Has Finally Been Pulled From Netflix UK And The BBC Due To Blackface

“Times have changed since 'Little Britain' first aired," said the BBC.

by Patrick Lenton  10 June 2020
Little Britain

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Beloved British comedy Little Britain has been pulled from all UK streaming platforms, including Netflix UK and BBC iPlayer, due to concerns about all the blackface in the dated series.

The show, starred and created by David Walliams and Matt Lucas, which first aired in 2003, features several controversial sketches, most notably a segment including a character named Desiree DeVere, a black woman played by Walliams in full blackface.

There’s also the offensive “I’m a lady” sketches and a yellowface “Thai bride” named Ting Tong that have attracted criticism.

The show has come under renewed criticism during the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the globe, due to blackface being an appallingly outdated relic of colonial racism.

Walliams and Lucas have previously apologised and expressed regret about performing blackface characters. In a 2007 interview, Matt Lucas said:

“If I could go back and do Little Britain again, I wouldn’t make those jokes about transvestites. I wouldn’t play black characters,” he said. “Basically, I wouldn’t make that show now. It would upset people. We made a more cruel kind of comedy than I’d do now.”

Talking to The Daily Mail about the recent decision, a spokesperson from the BBC echoed this sentiment:

“Times have changed since Little Britain first aired, so it is not currently available on BBC iPlayer.”

Australia, of course, has its own massively outdated comedies from around the same era, which also suffer from offensive depictions of blackface and minstrelsy, in the form of Chris Lilley’s shows Summer Heights High, Jonah From Tonga, and Angry Boys. 

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His Tongan schoolboy character Jonah has had repeated criticisms of minstrelsy, and was pulled from New Zealand TV over concerns of racism.

The criticisms return with his 2011 show Angry Boys featured him in blackface as the character S.Mouse. That backlash returned later in 2017, when the comedian reposted a music video of himself in character as S.Mouse a week after the death of teenager Elijah Doughty.

The parallels between Little Britain and Chris Lilley’s shows are pretty obvious.

All of Chris Lilley’s comedies are available on Netflix in Australia, who have been outspoken in their support of the Black Lives Matter movement.