Research participants expressed surprise the controversial episode is still on iPlayer.

A controversial Little Britain sketch is “explicitly racist and outdated”, and it is surprising it is still available on BBC iPlayer, according to audience research by Ofcom.

The regulator showed people a number of clips of television as part of a study into audience expectations on potentially offensive content across linear TV and streaming services.

One sketch from Little Britain, originally broadcast in 2002 and available on iPlayer, shows David Walliams as university employee Linda Flint describing an Asian student, Kenneth Lao, over the phone to her manager.

He is described as having “yellowish skin, slight smell of soy sauce … the ching-chong China man.”

The scene is accompanied by a laugh track.

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  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMAEnglish
    71·
    1 year ago

    I wasn’t a fan at the time - it felt like they did far too much punching down and had failed to properly learn the lessons of The Fast Show (as did a lot of sketch shows that followed in its wake that thought all you really needed was a catchphrase).

      • 15liam20English
        11·
        1 year ago

        It had the same ten jokes every week.

        • mannycalaveraEnglish
          5·
          1 year ago

          Well, that was the point. The jokes built on the situations from the previous show. It wasn’t literally the same joke, it was an ever increasingly weirder variation. That’s what sketch shows are. Same with Goodness Gracious Me.

          I thought maybe someone was saying it was racist.

    • ChrisMEnglish
      31·
      1 year ago

      Even at the time it looked very outdated.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMAEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        Yes, I was trying to get my head around the main conclusion:

        The research participants, who were questioned by polling company Ipsos, viewed the content as “explicitly racist and outdated, and felt that society had moved on”, the report said.

        As it felt very seventies (and, no, doing it ironically doesn’t help) but has society really moved on? Either from the seventies or naughties?