BBC removes 11 offensive Mitchell and Webb sketches that no longer ‘work today’

Mitchell and Webb sketches have been cut on iPlayer (Picture: BBC)

Almost a dozen That Mitchell and Webb Look sketches are being removed from the BBC as they don’t ‘work today’.

Starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, the Bafta-winning series ran for four seasons between 2006 and 2010.

The show recently marked its 20th anniversary and returned to iPlayer, but with 11 sketches missing.

One of the offending scenes reportedly showed the pair satirising racism while in blackface, which has now been removed.

‘This is a 20-year-old sketch show; in consultation with the programme makers, we have included the ones that still work today and not the ones that don’t,’ a BBC spokesperson said.

Other sketches are said to include a makeover show contestant wearing a burka and a ‘tribe’ who lived in a garden centre.

The series ran from 2006 to 2010 and won a Bafta (Picture: BBC)

Comedian Dom Joly, of Trigger Happy TV, questioned the BBC’s decision to ‘censor’ the show when the ‘intent’ was not racism.

Joly told The Times: ‘I totally get it if the BBC is putting out something really racist, which is laughing at and encouraging other people to feel that it’s OK to do that.

‘But it’s so clear that Mitchell and Webb are not doing that. Their intent was not to be racist.’

However, Jimmy Mulville, the co-founder of Hat Trick Productions, said the broadcaster is in an ‘impossible position’.

Mulville noted that producers needed to ‘be careful that this is not the thin end of a wedge where we cut things out.’

That Mitchell and Webb Look ran for 24 episodes, each packed with numerous sketches.

That Mitchell and Webb Look is on iPlayer – without 11 sketches (Picture: BBC)

The most famous scene is likely one which sees the duo dressed as Nazi on the battlefield, asking ‘are we the baddies?’, which has since become a meme.

A similar fate met fellow sketch show Little Britain, which was pulled by the BBC as bosses said ‘times have changed’.

In 2017, writer and star Matt Lucas said that if he could ‘go back and do Little Britain again,’ he wouldn’t make jokes about trans people, nor would he play Black characters.

‘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.’

Mitchell and Webb haven’t shared any reaction to the BBC’s decision to remove content from the show.

Metro has reached out to Mitchell and Webb for comment.

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