The BBC started several including The Real McCoy, which has endured a couple of series. Generally, however, the BBC don’t sustain black comedies.
Then came Blouse & Skirt, which debuted in 1996, housed within the BBC’s Black Zone A Force slot. The A Force, as if you don’t know, was a four hour weekly programme into which separate comedy, game show, drama, discussion, arts and entertainment serials were thrown into the blender! Not that we were ungrateful or anything. Hell, no. We were grateful alright!
What most Black viewers didn’t check for though, was the sleight, perceived or otherwise, of having to watch a programme that was relegated to the late night/early morning graveyard shift. It went out Fridays at 11 p.m. and by the time 2 a.m. came around you felt pretty dead yourself! Is that why they called the Black Zone?
The only long term commitment the BBC, or any British TV company for that matter, has shown to black comedians manifest itself in The Lenny Henry Show. This has been going for several series now, but more later on Lenny, who is easily the most celebrated UK Black comedian in the mainstream.
Spot The BlackIn the beginning trying to find a black comedian on mainstream British TV, or anywhere else for that matter, was a non-starter. They just didn’t exist, except as bit parts in other people’s programmes. The OPPs we’re talking about here were handled by white producers and directors who were more concerned with entertaining their peers than in balance representation of black people. Political Correctness was not invented then!
The net effect of this was that very often the material these comedians were given, or accepted, were very demeaning to themselves and blacks generally. But what the heck, it was a living! And if one joker turned it down on ethical or moral ground, another fool would jump in like a shot…
In the ’70s TV show The Comedians, you had mixed raced guys like Charlie Williams doing his “chalky” diatribe in a genuinely thick northern England accent. (Williams was fund of calling white people “chalky” , but it was done in a very non-offensive way. The term probably referred to the colour of blackboard chalk).
Despite what he really was, he came across as a ‘white black man’ and it made you cringe because out on the streets we were struggling to keep our black identity intact and he seemed to be messing it up big time!
Perhaps it was because seeing a black face on TV was so unusual that it seemed all our hopes and dreams rested on Williams’ shoulders; it was a career boost for him, while we were looking for positive representation. But that was the wrong programme. And Williams even had to share the studio floor with Bernard Manning, an out and out racist, masquerading as a comedian.
Love Thy NeighbourIn sitcoms you had Trinidadian actor Rudolph Walker battling with his white neighbour Jack Smethyrst in Love They Neighbour. They traded racial insults – Smethyrst’s “nig nog and sambo” against Walker’s “honky.”
It was all ‘good clean fun’, or at least that’s what we thought as youngsters. It was more the case that we watched because it was one of the very few things in the mainstream that had any black people in it. Apart from those in which blacks were paraded as criminals!
A more progressive campaign for the production of programmes with more black content were needed. The Fosters, Empire Road, No Problems and I’m sure there were others, rolled off the production line with varying degrees of success. None lasted, until Desmonds, starring Norman Beaton who died in 1995, came on the scene.
The DesmondsThe Desmonds became Channel Four’s most successful homegrown comedy series period, let alone one written, produced and directed by a black professional, in this case film maker Trix Worrell. When Beaton died in 1995, Desmonds did too and Porkpie, a spin off starring Ram John Holder, took its place with lesser success.
But why did it take so long for black comedians to get this far? It’s not as if the talent wasn’t there. It was more the case that UK black comics found so many obstacles that they chose to work in theatre or as stand up comedians instead. But in most other areas, namely social, political and economical, the pressure was also there.
New Cross FireOn January 18, 1981 14 young people died in a fire which broke out at a house party in New Cross, south east London. There were great speculation that racists were responsible for the fire, as many of the victims were Black.
The police were very quick to dismiss the racist allegations and were accused of making insufficient effort to find the truth. This cause severe distrust of the police and the establishment particularly since not one word of sympathy was offered to the victims families, as is normally the case by the prime minister and authorities in other tragedies.
Tension was high. Two months later, an estimated 10,000 people, led by now TV presenter Darcus Howe, (then based in Brixton, south London) marched on Downing Street in protest at the perceived racist attack and the police inaction.
Brixton Riots, 1981A month later the Brixton riots exploded and with it the entire racial landscape because finally Black rage made its mark on a Britain that largely ignored and criminlised it.
This led to a build up of urban disturbances involving a number of black in the early ’80s. Clearly there was a crucial need for black concerns to be taken seriously. They could no longer be ignored. ‘Riots’ in places like Brixton (London), Toxteth (Liverpool), Moss Side (Manchester), Chapel Town (Leeds) and St. Paul’s (Bristol), saw to that.
This focussed much atttention on the plight of Blacks in Britain. Consequently money was begrudginly poured into these volatile (but vibrant!) innercity areas to improve them.
Particularly money and grants were doled out to encourage ethnic diversity and a number of Black theatre companies sprang up. The Voice newspaper, Britain’s leading Black publication, was born out of this ashes. Suddenly, money was available to rebuild the demaged communities or at least to beautify areas of it. Out of this cultural space a large number of Black comedy groups and most importantly, Black Comedians, who had grown up behind Lenny Henry, the elder statesman of Black Britich Comedy (maybe that’s the real abbreviation for the BBC!)…
Lenny HenryMeanwhile, Black comedians saw the success which Lenny Henry had enjoyed and were inspired.
The reality, however, was that when loveable Lenny started he was doing objectionable material too. Like appearing in The Black & White Minstrel Show, an Al Jolson type programme that basically took the piss out of Black people for the entertainment of white people.
Lenny slowly gain in status and appeared as co-presenter on programmes like OTT (Over The Top) and TISWAS (a Saturday morning children’s programme). At times you got the impression that he was an appendage. Somewhere along the line, however, he found and got the respect he deserved. He was and still remains a beacon for British Black comedy success.
Detractors will point to his marriage to white comedienne Dawn French, the other half of the French and (Jennifer) Saunders duo, as evidence of his selling out, but that is another story…
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