Curry and Chips

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Curry and Chips was a controversial 1969 British sitcom from London Weekend Television.

Set on a factory floor of 'Lillicrap Ltd', it starred a blacked up Spike Milligan as an Asian immigrant who went by the name of Kevin O'Grady. It also featured Eric Sykes as the foreman, Norman Rossington as the shop steward, and regulars were Kenny Lynch, and Sam Kydd. The series was written by Til Death Us Do Part writer Johnny Speight, but based on idea by Milligan.^[1]

It was the first LWT sitcom to be made in colour,^[2] and copies of all episodes of the series are kept in the television archives.^[3]

[edit] Controversy

Despite the apparent lack of political correctness, the ambition of Curry and Chips was to highlight discrimination, rather than promote it. The Independent Broadcasting Authority disagreed, and Curry and Chips was pulled off air by them after only six episodes. Speight himself later remarked: "It was the English who were made to look bigoted in the show but the people at the IBA couldn't understand that. It was London Weekend Television's first year, but only six shows went out. The IBA made LWT take it off, saying it was racist."^[4] They weren't alone, as amongst those who originally complained about the show were the Race Relations Board.^[5]

Screenonline said of the show "though it again attempted to raise important questions, lacked a strong enough voice to challenge the racist attitudes of its characters, and too much of its humour relied on the use of crude racial abuse and Milligan's caricatured performance as the charmlessly-nicknamed 'Paki Paddy'. The shocked reaction from some viewers and cultural commentators led to the show being dropped by ITV after just six episodes, and in retrospect it's hard to understand how Speight and LWT can have failed to anticipate the offence it caused."^[6]

At the time though, the show was just as controversial for the number of swear words in it. The word 'bloody' was used 59 times in one episode. Eric Sykes though refused to swear at all.^[7]

The show was also voted amongst the 100 Greatest TV Moments From Hell in a Channel 4 show in the year 2000, though others have noted in response that "as is always the case with 'racist 70s sit-coms' ... they've failed to point out that all the white characters are always horrible and brutish while the ethnic parts are always played sympathetically."^[8]

Six years later, Milligan once again blacked up in the BBC series The Melting Pot. Only one episode was shown, and the other five were pulled.^[9]