...it's not just Leigh Francis

Keith Lemon creator Leigh Francis last week apologised for mimicking black celebrities including Michael Jackson and Craig David on Bo'Selecta! 'I've been talking to some people,' he said in a tearful statement in the wake of the intensifying Black Lives Matter campaign. 'I didn't realise how offensive it was back then.'

But he's far from the only comedian to flirt with blackface, long after its racism became apparent.

The practice of depicting exaggerated features gained popularity during the 19th Century in the minstrel shows in the US, fuelling the spread of  racial stereotypes such as the happy plantation slave, or depicting enslaved Africans as lazy, ignorant or hypersexual.

The concept was picked up in the UK, most predominantly on The Black And White Minstrel show, which ran for 20 years on primetime BBC television from 1958 – even though concerns about the portrayal of African-American stereotypes were raised as early as 1963, at the peak of the Civil Rights movement in the US.

Almost 60 years later and the trope has refused to go away, despite harsh criticism. Dr Kehinde Andrews, of Birmingham City University, has described blackface as being 'very much about the fear of black people and the laughing at black people'.

While David Leonard, of Washington State University has said that blacking up is harmful whatever the intent, writing: 'Blackface is part of a history of dehumanisation, of denied citizenship, and of efforts to excuse and justify state violence.'

Here are 10 other comedians – some unexpected – who have taken to blackface or brownface over their careers.

1. Little Britain/Come Fly With Me

One of the most high-profile cases in recent years, Little Britain featured David Walliams blacking up in a fat suit to play the outrageous socialite Desiree deVere, and Matt Walliams playing Thai bride Ting Tong.

And with their 2010 airport-set follow-up,Come Fly With Me, they doubled down on the blacking up, with Lucas playing Jamaican woman Precious Little and Taaj, a dim ground crew worker of Pakistani descent, while Walliams played Middle Eastern passenger liaison officer Moses. And both played Japanese schoolgirls.

Although such portrayals were widely criticised at the time, they won praise from Jim Davidson for striking a blow against political correctness - which probably wasn't the endorsement they were seeking

At the time Lucas said: Lucas said: 'Like in Little Britain we try to reflect, affectionately, the multicultural Britain we love. No offence is intended."

But he subsequently said he wouldn't play black characters any more, saying of Little Britain in 2017: '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.'

2. Spike Milligan

In one of Britain's most notorious sitcoms, Curry and Chips, Spike Milligan darkened his face to play a Pakistani immigrant called Kevin O'Grady, alongside Eric Skyes.

Though created in 1969 by Johnny Speight, a liberal writer, the character was an offensive stereotype. In one scene, he said: 'I leave Pakistan because there are far too many wogs there. So I come to England and there are still too many wogs.' Oh dear.

Six years later, Milligan once again blacked up to play Mr Van Gogh, an illegal Pakistani immigrant, in the BBC series The Melting Pot, which he co-wrote. Only one episode was shown, and the other five were pulled.

3. Chris Morris

In The Day Today in the mid-1990s, Morris played a black rapper called Fur Q. He appeared in a spoof youth entertainment segment, Rok TV, which satirised hip-hop culture's glamorisation of drugs, through the song Uzi Lover.

4. The cast of Are You Being Served?

In the 1981 Christmas special, the staff of Grace Brothers presented a musical tribute to the store's founders, which culminated in a number straight out of the Black and White Minstrel Show, which had been taken off air three years earlier. Mollie Sugden, John Inman, and Frank Thornton were among those who blacked up for the number. Wendy Richard was one of the few cast members who didn't

5. Simon Brodkin

For a 2013 sketch show based around his most famous creation, Lee Nelson's Well Funny People, prankster Brodkin played a character called Pastor Daniel Doolay, a homophobic African minister with a satellite TV channel… although almost all evidence has been wiped from the internet. He has also played Dr Omprakash, an Asian hospital doctor, drawing on his own background as a medic.

6. Jimmy Fallon

Last month, US talk show host Jimmy Fallon apologised for blacking up in a Saturday Night Live skit 20 years ago in which he impersonated Chris Rock. He said: 'In 2000, while on SNL, I made a terrible decision to do an impersonation of Chris Rock while in blackface There is no excuse for this. I am very sorry for making this unquestionably offensive decision and thank all of you for holding me accountable.'

7. Sarah Silverman

Sarah Silverman's blacking up for a 2007 sketch is still having repercussions, with the comic last year revealing that she was dropped from a movie at the last moment when producers became aware of the scene.

Made for her her Comedy Central show, the sketch involved Silverman and African-American actor Alex Désert arguing whether it was harder to be Jewish or black, so they switch places for the day. Silverman donned deliberately exaggerated blackface and said:  'I look like the beautiful Queen Latifah' before entering a baptist church and proclaiming: 'I'm black today.' 

Three years later she was still at it, tweeting a photo of herself in blackface accompanied with the caption: 'I'm having minstrel cramps.'

Although hitting out the 'cancel culture', Silverman has subsequently admitted she was 'horrified' by her earlier misstep, saying: 'I don't stand by the blackface sketch…  I can't erase it. I can only be changed by it and move on. All I can say is that I'm not that person any more' and 'There are jokes I made… that I would absolutely not make today, because I am less ignorant than I was. I know more now than I did.'

8. League Of Gentlemen... perhaps?

Occasionally this seminal comedy faces accusations that kidnapper Papa Lazarou, in his grotesque blackface, is controversial. But the League Of Gentlemen has largely avoided a major backlash over the creation, with viewers trusting the instincts of the creators.

As Reece Shearsmith, who plays Lazarou, said in an interview earlier this year: 'It was not me doing a black man. It was always this clown-like make-up and we just came up with what we thought was the scariest idea to have in a sort of Child Catcher-like way.'

Steve Pemberton added: 'I may be wrong, but I don't think we had any complaints. People know that it was a character and the oddness and weird nature of that character doesn't make you sit there and think, "What point are they trying to make?" It's not a political thing at all.'

9. The Goodies

An episode about South Africa actually contained a strong anti-apartheid message you might not expect from a silly sketch trio. But he episode involved blacking in the crudest way when Tim Brooke-Taylor donned boot-polish to portray a black South African, who goes to work in a company called Sambo Enterprises.

Graeme Garden has offered some defence, saying: 'If you put offensive words into the mouth of a villain, is that still offensive or is that making a point?' but has also admitted of some of their writing: 'I think we were being casually ­racist - and almost everybody was in those day.

For more, see our 2018 article Were the Goodies offensive?

10. Ant and Dec

Even Britain's best-loved cheeky entertainers have not been immune and in 2003 they dressed up as two fictional Jamaican women for a Saturday Night Takeaway sketch pranking the cast of Emmerdale.

The following year In 2004, they dressed up as two Japanese girls with exaggerated accents for another stunt on the set of Coronation Street.

Published: 8 Jun 2020