It Ain't Half Hot Mum

"Seventies comedies would not be allowed on television screens today because they were so racist and offensive, the outgoing head of Ofcom has said. Ed Richards, who stands down as chief executive of the media watchdog at the end of this month, said programmes from a previous generation were no longer suitable for today’s more enlightened audiences. Although he did not name names, comedies like Love Thy Neighbour, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and Mind Your Language have all been criticised in recent years for their racial stereotyping."

""There are comedies from the seventies which had certain racial stereotyping in the[m], which are unimaginable today and if they were shown people would find them offensive and that wouldn't just be people from black and ethnic minority communities, it would be everybody," Mr Richards said in an interview with The Independent newspaper."

"It is without doubt the funniest series that David Croft and I wrote. Of course, it is also the show that we're not allowed to talk about any more"

"People complain that the language was homophobic, and it was, but it was exactly how people spoke. And I should know - I was in a Royal Artillery concert party that travelled around India. We had a sergeant-major who hated us. He'd say: 'No man who puts on make-up and ponces about on a stage is normal - what are you?' 'We're a bunch of poofs!' we'd reply. And those experiences are ones that enabled me to write It Ain't Half Hot, Mum."

"[On the casting of Michael Bates, a white actor, as the Indian bearer, Rangi Ram] At the time we found it impossible to find an Indian actor who could perform the role, to be perfectly honest [Query from the interviewer, Stuart Jeffries: "In a country of 500m people?"] Yes. But Michael was ideal for the role. He was born in India, spoke fluent Urdu, had been an officer in the Gurkhas and he'd served with the Chindits behind Japanese lines in Burma."

"But the 1970s sitcom is also a repository of our nightmares. [Love Thy Neighbour, another sitcom with obsolete attitudes to race, and Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech viewed as "shorthand for British racism"] It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Jimmy Perry and David Croft's comedy about a British Army concert party in India between V-E Day and V-J Day, fulfils a similar function. We remember the white actor Michael Bates in brownface, shrieking and nodding under a turban, and Windsor Davies’s sergeant major bemoaning his command of "a load of poofs" – and we know we're seeing something that a modern audience would find hard to distinguish from The Black and White Minstrel Show."