The comedy show, which was hugely popular in the mid-2000’s, has been pulled from Netflix, BritBox, and the BBC’s iPlayer due to concerns about racism.
‘Little Britain’ first aired on BBC Three in 2003. It was removed from the platform along with its comedy follow-up, ‘Come Fly With Me’. The show has actually been the subject of controversy for quite some time, the most notable examples of this being its sketches portraying transgender and disabled individuals and Thai brides. However, the character Desiree DeVere, a black woman, played by David Walliams, caused the most concern and outrage.
“If I could go back and do ‘Little Britain’ again…I wouldn’t play black characters,” co-star Matt Lucas said. “Basically, I wouldn’t make that show now. It would upset people. We made a more cruel kind of comedy than I’d do now.”