'It's incredibly difficuly for black and Asian writers'

She says that most of the sitcoms pitched to her are ‘white and male-led’ – and that she wanted to encourage more diversity in the scripts.

As controller of comedy commissioning, Lumsden receives more than one script a day, on average, but said that only a ‘small proportion’ came from black and Asian writers.

Her comments, in an interview with actors’ newspaper The Stage will fuel the debate about the lack of black and ethnic minorities working in the industry, recently revived by Lenny Henry.

She said: ‘The majority of all our ideas are male-led, single camera shows and they are usually white male-led. It is still a very white male industry and white males tend to write about their own lives.

‘Just as it is difficult for women to break through into comedy because they feel it is not their domain, I am sure it is incredibly difficult for black and Asian writers.

‘But if you have a show that speaks to them, suddenly that changes that. They then feel it is a show they can contribute to and not that they are working within this white male world.”

She said the new BBC Three sitcom Trexx and Flipside, pictured, created by stand-up Zeron Gibson about two aspiring hip-hop stars, would ‘speak to’ black writers.

But she said she did not want black-led comedy shows to become ghettoised, adding: ‘There are lots of opportunities on all our comedies across all channels, and independent producers should be on the hunt for diversity in our writers.

Published: 11 Mar 2008