As BBC faces questions over Chris Lilley clips still online

The League Of Gentlemen has been pulled from Netflix in the continuing row over blackface in comedy.

All episodes were dropped by the streaming giant as it also took Little Britain and its follow-up Come Fly With Me From its library because of concerns about the way Matt Lucas and David Walliams played black characters.

Netflix has also pulled four shows from controversial Australian comic Chris Lilley over similar fears: Angry Boys, Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes and Jonah From Tonga.

The move has put pressure on the BBC to follow suit.

We Can Be Heroes, in which Lilley plays Chinese physics student Ricky Wong, and Summer Heights High, in which he wore brown make-up to play Jonah, remain on iPlayer.

And  the BBC Three website includes several clips from Angry Boys of the comic in blackface as rapper S.mouse, above , including one which he sings about having ‘big black balls’ and others in which he uses the n-word.

The League Of Gentlemen has fallen foul of the same drive to purge blackface from Netflix because of the character of Papa Lazarou.

However, the series has largely avoided a major backlash over the grotesque creation, with viewers trusting the instincts of the creators.

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.'

Co-star 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.'

This morning, Chortle also revealed that Bo’Selecta! has been pulled from Channel 4’s on-demand service All4 after creator Leigh Francis apologised for the way he portrayed black people on the show, although it remains available on Amazon Prime.

Published: 10 Jun 2020