A BBC comedy that sparked controversy is set to make a comeback on terrestrial TV, two decades after its initial debut.
Little Britain is set to grace screens during the festive season, as part of That’s TV’s holiday lineup.
All three seasons of the show, which first aired in 2003, are scheduled for nightly broadcasts, with the first episode set for Saturday, 16 December, at 9:05pm on That’s TV.
Crafted by the minds of David Walliams and Matt Lucas, the sketch series followed the peculiar lives of a number of different diverse British characters.
The comedic duo faced criticism for their portrayals in the show, prompting the BBC and Netflix to remove it from their platforms due to blackface sketches and other offensive humour.
The controversial comedy sketch Little Britain will air during the festive season, as part of That’s TV’s holiday lineup (pictured: Matt Lucas as wheelchair user Andy and David Walliams as Lou)
The sketch comedy programme – which ran from 2003 to 2006 on BBC Three and BBC One – was removed from BBC iPlayer in 2020 after scenes were deemed offensive (David Walliams pictured as Little Britain character Dudley Punt (left) and Matt Lucas seen as Ting Tong Macadangdang (right)
Little Britain returned to streaming services in 2022 after offensive blackface scenes were cut by producers.
Assurances were given at the time that some scenes were removed by creators Matt and David, and advisory warnings were used at the start of some episodes.
Little Britain’s most iconic characters, including Vicky Pollard and wheelchair user Andy, were retained, alongside others including Matt’s homosexual Welshman Dafydd Thomas and David’s cross-dresser Emily Howard.
As part of the show’s 2022 revival, characters donning black face including Pastor Jesse King, Desiree DeVere and other racial stereotypes such as Thai bride Ting Tong, were left in the cutting room.
In a statement at the time, the BBC said: ‘Little Britain has been made available to fans on BBC iPlayer following edits made to the series by Matt and David that better reflect the changes in the cultural landscape over the last 20 years since the show was first made.’
Matt and David have both previously apologised for their use of blackface on the show, which began as a radio programme in 2000 before running as a TV series on the BBC between 2003 and 2007, launching their respective careers.
Kris Vaiksalu, the head of programming for That’s TV expressed his enthusiasm about featuring the hit comedy over the Christmas period stating: ‘The holiday season is a time for joy and spreading warmth through laughter.
‘This year, we are particularly thrilled to showcase the comedic brilliance of Matt Lucas and David Walliams, marking two decades since the inception of Little Britain.’
Acting out: Daffyd Thomas, a homosexual Welshman played by Matt, repeatedly claims he is the ‘only gay in the village’ of the fictional mining village of Llandewi, Wales in the show
‘When this show premiered two decades ago, it swiftly became a cultural phenomenon, elevating Lucas and Walliams to the status of comedy icons.
‘On this anniversary, it holds special significance for us to present Little Britain each night during our Christmas week comedy festival.’
He added: ‘This festive season is a unique time, and we aim to share the joy with an unprecedented array of Christmas comedy specials.’
It comes after fellow comic, Peter Kay defended the controversial show and said he was delighted to have been given a part in the 2006 special Little Britain Abroad.
According to the Mirror, the northern comedian wrote in his book T.V: Big Adventures on the Small Screen: ‘I was to play the younger brother of Dudley Punt [David Walliams].
‘He’s just married his Thai bride, Ting Tong Macadangdang [Matt Lucas], in order to make an honest man/woman of her.
‘They go on their honeymoon to Belgium and meet my character. I live in a caravan park with my new 18-year-old virgin wife Ivanka [Julia Davis], “who’s set me back two hundred quid”.
‘It was far from being politically correct but that’s what made it funny. It probably wouldn’t get made now.
‘Sadly Matt and David have taken a lot of flak in the past few years for the work they did. That’s a shame.’
Peter added that ‘comedy is such a minefield’, claiming that political correctness is changing all the time.
He insisted that while sometimes good comes from being politically correct, most of the time it is a hinderance.
The star concluded: ‘Everybody’s a critic on social media. Something or somebody gets “slammed on Twitter”, which might only be a handful of people.’
