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The Black and White Minstrel Show

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The Black and White Minstrel Show
Created byGeorge Mitchell
Starring
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
Production locationsLondon, England
Original release
NetworkBBC
Release14 June 1958 (1958-06-14) –
21 July 1978 (1978-07-21)

The Black and White Minstrel Show is a British light entertainment show on BBC prime-time television that ran from 1958 to 1978. The weekly variety show presented traditional American minstrel and country songs, as well as show tunes and music hall numbers, lavishly costumed and often presented with cast members in blackface. A popular stage show, based on the TV show with the same title, ran from 1962 to 1972 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London. This was followed by tours of UK seaside resorts until 1989, and tours in Australia and New Zealand. From early in its history, and increasingly throughout its run, the show received criticism for its racist premise and content.

History

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See also: History of American minstrel shows

Minstrel shows had become a long-established feature of British music halls and seaside entertainment since the success of acts such as the Virginia Minstrels in Liverpool in the 1840s and Christy's Minstrels in London in the 1850s. These led directly to many British imitators, such as Hamilton's Black and White Minstrels in the 1880s and many others, with Uncle Mac's Minstrels becoming such a popular mainstay in Broadstairs, Kent, from the 1890s to the 1940s that a plaque was erected to honour their memory.[1] Though any development in the performance of such acts may have ended before the First World War, the "old-time" minstrel theme remained a consistently popular form of entertainment in the UK well into the 1950s.

The Black and White Minstrel Show was created by BBC producer George Inns, working with George Mitchell.[2] It began as a one-off special in 1957 called The 1957 Television Minstrels, featuring the male Mitchell Minstrels (Mitchell was the musical director) and the female Television Toppers dancers. The show was first broadcast on the BBC on 14 June 1958. It developed into a regular 45-minute show on Saturday evening prime-time television in a sing-along format, with both solo and minstrel pieces (often with extended segueing), some country and western numbers, and music derived from other foreign folk cultures. The male minstrels performed in blackface; the female dancers and other supporting artists did not. The show included comedy interludes performed by Leslie Crowther, George Chisholm and Stan Stennett. It was initially produced by George Inns with George Mitchell. The minstrels' main soloists were baritone Dai Francis, tenor John Boulter, and bass Tony Mercer.[3] During the nine years that the show was broadcast in black and white, the blackface makeup was actually red, as black did not register as well.[citation needed]

The series gained considerable international regard and was sold to over thirty countries;[citation needed] in 1961 the show won a Golden Rose at Montreux for best light entertainment programme, and its first three albums of recordings (1960–1962) were all hits, the first two being long-running number 1 albums in the UK Albums Chart. The first of these became the first album in UK album sales history to pass 100,000 sales.[4] By 1964, The Black and White Minstrel Show was achieving audience figures of 21 million.[citation needed]

In the spring of 1962, the BBC musical variety show The Black and White Minstrel Show opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre. The three lead singers of the TV show, Mercer, Boulter and Francis, appeared simultaneouslly in the theatrical version, but the chorus singers and dancers would be different groups in the theatre and on TV. The stage show was produced by Robert Luff,[5] and ran for 6,477 performances from 1962 to 1972; The Guinness Book of Records listed it as the stage show seen by the largest number of people.[citation needed] In Melbourne in 1962, a production of the show ran for three years,[citation needed] and set Australian and New Zealand box office records.[citation needed]

While it started off being broadcast in black and white, the TV show was first shown in colour on BBC2 in 1967. Several personalities guested on the show, whilst others started their careers on it. Comedian Lenny Henry, then in his teens, became the first black performer to appear on it in 1975.[6] In July 2009, Henry explained that he was contractually obliged to perform and regretted his part in the show,[7] telling The Times in 2015 that his appearance on the show led to a profound "wormhole of depression", and that he regretted his family not intervening to prevent him from continuing in the show.[8]

Denunciation as racist

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Within five years of the show's premiere on UK television, its portrayal of blacked-up characters behaving with stereotypical African-American manners was already being observed by some as offensive and racist. After the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who marched from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to protest against segregation in the American South, the satirical show That Was the Week That Was parodied The Black and White Minstrel Show's trivialisation of the systemic racism in the Southern American states with a sketch in which Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam and sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("Where the Mississippi mud / Kind of mingles with the blood / Of the niggers that are hanging from the branches of the trees").[9] accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("Mississippi, it's the state you've gotta choose / Where we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is strong and white and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan").[10][11]

David Hendy, Professor of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex, comments that Barrie Thorne, the corporation's chief accountant, described the series in an internal memo to Director of Television Kenneth Adam in 1962 as being "a disgrace and an insult to coloured people". He continued: "If black faces are to be shown, for heaven’s sake let coloured artists be employed and with dignity".[12] Thorne raised the issue again in 1967 with Oliver Whitley, Chief Assistant to the BBC's director general, Sir Hugh Greene. Whitley responded: "The best advice that could be given to coloured people by their friends would be: 'On this issue, we can see your point, but in your own best interests, for heaven's sake, shut up.'"[12][13][14]

In 1967, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination presented a petition to the BBC calling for the show to be cancelled.[15] The following year, the BBC experimented with a version of the show called Masquerade, in which the main singers appeared without blackface, and the black singers wore whiteface.[16] In 1969, due to continuing accusations of racism, Music Music Music, a spin-off series in which the minstrels appeared without their blackface make-up, replaced The Black and White Minstrel Show. However, after one series, The Black and White Minstrel Show returned.

Since its cancellation in 1978, The Black and White Minstrel Show has come to be regarded with disdain. BBC writer Kate Broome states, "That an innocently-intentioned show could, in just a generation, become such a screen pariah is one of the most extraordinary episodes in television history".[17]

Final years

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The BBC1 television programme was cancelled in 1978 as part of a reduction in variety programming (by this point, the blackface element had been reduced),[18] while the stage show continued. A touring version toured continuously from 1960 until 1987, with a second company touring Australia and New Zealand from 1962 to 1965, 1969 to 1971, and 1978 to 1979.[citation needed] Having left the Victoria Palace Theatre, where the stage show played from 1962 to 1972, a second show toured almost every year to various big city and seaside resort theatres around the UK, including the Futurist in Scarborough, the Winter Gardens in Morecambe, the Festival Theatre in Paignton, the Congress Theatre in Eastbourne and the Pavilion Theatre in Bournemouth.[citation needed] This continued every year until 1989, when a final tour of three Butlins resorts (Minehead, Bognor Regis, and Barry Island) saw the last official Black and White Minstrel Show staged.[citation needed]

Legacy

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In a 1971 episode of The Two Ronnies, a musical sketch, "The Short and Fat Minstrel Show", was performed as a parody of The Black and White Minstrel Show, featuring spoofs of various songs.[19] An episode of the BBC comedy series The Goodies ("Alternative Roots"), spoofed the positive reception of The Black and White Minstrel Show, suggesting that any programme could double its viewing figures by being performed in blackface, and mentioning that a series of The Black and White Minstrel Show had been tried without makeup.[20] The Are You Being Served? episode "Roots" featured a storyline in which Mr. Grace's lineage was traced in order to perform an appropriate song and dance for his 90th birthday. The result was a number that parodied The Black and White Minstrel Show by having the male performers in blackface, while the females (excluding Mrs. Slocombe) were not.

In 2023 the BBC broadcast a documentary presented by the actor David Harewood and the historian David Olusoga about the pernicious influence of blackface minstrelsy in pervading racial stereotypes and anti-black racism in Great Britain. The documentary was framed around, and heavily critical of, the BBC’s own The Black and White Minstrel Show.[21]

Discography

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The Black and White Minstrel Show

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Chart Year Peak
position
UK Albums Chart[22][23] 1961 1
1962
1963
Preceded by
South Pacific by Original Soundtrack
South Pacific by Original Soundtrack
South Pacific by Original Soundtrack
The Shadows by The Shadows
Out of the Shadows by The Shadows
 UK Albums Chart number-one album
29 July 1961 – 26 August 1961
2 September 1961 – 9 September 1961
16 September 1961 – 23 September 1961
21 October 1961 – 28 October 1961
29 December 1962 – 12 January 1963 		Succeeded by
South Pacific by Original Soundtrack
South Pacific by Original Soundtrack
The Shadows by The Shadows
The Shadows by The Shadows
West Side Story by Original Soundtrack

Another Black and White Minstrel Show

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Chart Year Peak
position
UK Albums Chart[24] 1961 1
1962
Preceded by UK Albums Chart number-one album
11 November 1961 – 6 January 1962 		Succeeded by

On Stage with the George Mitchell Minstrels

[edit]
Chart Year Peak
position
UK Albums Chart[25] 1962 1
Preceded by
Out of the Shadows by The Shadows
 UK Albums Chart number-one album
1 December 1962 – 15 December 1962 		Succeeded by
West Side Story by Original Soundtrack

Other albums

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Title Year UK[26]
On Tour with the George Mitchell Minstrels 1963 6
Spotlight on the George Mitchell Minstrels 1964 6
Magic of the Minstrels 1965 9
Here Come the Minstrels 1966 11
Showtime Special 1967 26
The Irving Berlin Songbook 1968 33
The Magic of Christmas 1970 32
The Black and White Minstrels With the Joe Loss Orchestra – 30 Golden Greats 1977 10

References

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  1. ^ Robinson, Andy (14 January 2018). "The story behind the controversy surrounding Broadstairs entertainment troupe Uncle Mack's Minstrels has been revealed in a local historian's new book". Kentlive.news. Kent. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  2. ^ "Black And White Minstrels creator dies". The Guardian. 29 August 2002.
  3. ^ "Television Heaven". Archived from the original on 5 December 2008. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
  4. ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 170. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  5. ^ "Robert Luff – Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph. London. 23 February 2009. Retrieved 1 March 2009.
  6. ^ Lenny Henry profile BBC Comedy pages
  7. ^ Five Minutes With: Lenny Henry BBC News Website
  8. ^ Midgley, Carol (6 June 2015). "Lenny Henry on racism and regret". The Times. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
  9. ^ Thomas, David (7 December 2002). "These are the men who were". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  10. ^ Hegarty, Neil (2016). Frost – That Was the Life That Was: The Authorised Biography. Ebury Publishing. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-7535-5672-6.
  11. ^ Strinati, Dominic; Wagg, Stephen (24 February 2004). Come on Down?: Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain. Routledge. p. 267. ISBN 978-1-134-92368-7.
  12. ^ a b Hendy, David. "The Black and White Minstrel Show". BBC 100. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  13. ^ Ward, Victoria (3 January 2022). "'Offensive' Black and White Minstrel Show features in BBC commemoration". The Telegraph. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  14. ^ Kanter, Jake (4 January 2022). "BBC rancour over Black and White Minstrels". The Times. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  15. ^ "Minstrels founder Mitchell dies". BBC. 29 August 2002. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
  16. ^ "Colored Singers in Whiteface For Brit. TV Minstrels". Variety. 15 May 1968. p. 1.
  17. ^ "BBC – BBC Four Time Shift – Black and White Minstrel Show Revisited". 14 March 2010. Archived from the original on 14 March 2010.
  18. ^ "Minstrels founder Mitchell dies". BBC News. 29 August 2002. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
  19. ^ TV.com (22 May 1971). "The Two Ronnies – Season 1, Episode 7: Series 1, Episode 7". TV.com. Retrieved 8 April 2012.[permanent dead link]
  20. ^ "Alternative Roots". The Goodies. Series 7. Episode 1. 1 November 2008.
  21. ^ "David Harewood on Blackface". Bbc.co.uk.
  22. ^ "The Official Charts Company – George Mitchell Minstrels – The Black and White Minstrel Show". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  23. ^ Mawer, Sharon (2007). "1961". Album Chart History. The Official UK Charts Company. Archived from the original on 19 June 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
  24. ^ "The Official Charts Company – George Mitchell Minstrels – Another Black and White Minstrel Show". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  25. ^ "The Official Charts Company – George Mitchell Minstrels – On Stage with the George Mitchell Minstrels". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  26. ^ "The Official Charts Company – The Black and White Minstrel Show". The Official Charts Company. 5 May 2013.
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