clitheroekid

The Are You Being Served episode where the staff perform a song as Minstrels comes to mind.

tvden

it looks very much like members that had copies of these shows are now no longer active on this forum

julian_craster

Amazingly, few of the B and W Minstrel show tapes have been wiped !
The BBC have many of the complete shows in their video vaults

christoph404

I agree that people should not be spoon fed or told what to think, as I said I am not a fan of the PC brigade, nor do I agree with so many PC dictums that try to tell us what to say and think. When I watch a programe like "Little Britain" I enjoy laughing at the pompous racist jam tasting ladies, for me I think there is a huge difference between being asked to laugh at and ridicule the attitudes of dislikable characters while wholly disaproving of them, and being asked to laugh along with the attitudes of characters. What I found objectionable about Love they Neighbour when it was first shown ( I am old enough to remember it when it was first screened) and what I still think about it now, is that too often we are not being asked to laugh with ridicule at the stupidity and offensiveness of the white racist character, I just feel that too often we were being asked to laugh along with his awful remarks and attitudes rather than at them and thats what I never liked about the programe. Times have changed thankfully, I can´t imagine this programme surfacing again,certainly not on TV and hopefully not on DVD! sorry, but I hated it!!

Brett Sinclair

LOL

There's no need to kneel, I'm a very democratic sort of lord.

tvden

well I just wish the BBC could find it in there hearts to show a few of these again which I could then record, I suppose a DVD release would be asking too much !!!!!! still I expect someone one here will turn up a copy given time

ChristineCB

Gee - maybe the BBC needs to appoint a few more Destructo-Pams and wipe out their entire history. That would SURE save that valuable vault space!

Torquemada

I have to say it was never one of my favourites and I was still at junior school when it was on. As for laughing with rather than at, I think there is always a danger of that when dealing with such issues and there are always those who wont get the joke and hail the characters as heroes and role models.

allen davies

Give Dad a d.v.d. of "The Jolson story " and "Jolson sings again", he'll enjoy them I'm sure , Allen D.

allen davies

That d.v.d. has become available , i picked up a copy last week and it's great

tvden

there seems to be a misconception on here that in some way the Black and White Minstrel show was some sort of comedy !!! it may have been classed as light entertainment but as a person that watched this program when it was first aired I can assure you it was quite the opposite being a serious attempt to provide decent well sung songs, this is how it was seen at the time things have moved on and for the worse in my opinion and if this show was put on now all the pc brigade would be up in arms what sad sad times we now live in

clitheroekid

The B&W Minstrel Show was good, old fashioned entertainment IMO

Alexis

If the show was all about the songs, why didn't they simply carry on with the same format but without the controversial blacking up? The reason the programme was axed was purely and simply that few people were watching it any more - the same reason that Sunday Night at the London Palladium and other variety shows.

tvden

it was not controversial at the time its only controversial now I would like to know Alexis if you actually watched this show when it was broadcast ???

Lord Brett

I'm with you on this one Alexis. Certain Benny Hill fans come up with the usual 'it's Political Correctness gone stark staring mad' argument when the subject of Thames cancelling his show comes up. I remember how people viewed Benny Hill at the time, and most people were bored stupid with the show by then.

Quite rightly, the Beeb won't be repeating the Black and White Minstrels any time soon, but they did put on a documentary on BBC4 recently (I hope it gets a more mainstream showing soon) explaining the minstrel shows within their historical context of the racism of the southern states of America.

Considering the amount of racism which still exists in Britain today, a re-run of the minstrels is the last thing we need!