It was always unclear who the joke was on in Matt Lucas and David Walliams’s sketch show. Twelve years on, the way minorities are demonised in
Britain is no laughing matter
It would be ham-fisted to blame the creators of Little Britain, which is making a comeback after 12 years, for its stereotypes. There was Andy and Lou, the malingering, not-disabled disabled person with his carer; Emily and Florence, the ladies who do lady things; Daffyd, the only gay in the village; Vicky Pollard, the yeah-but-no-but teenager; Dudley and Ting Tong, the regular guy and his mail-order bride … Even the act of describing them, and trying to maintain neutral language around tropes dripping with contempt, I’m finding quite draining.
Nevertheless, these were all caricatures that pre-existed Little Britain, which is where the humour was located. Matt Lucas and David Walliams messed in the margins of cultural stories that were felt rather than told. Disability, homophobia, classism and prejudices of all sorts were all just scams perpetrated on muggins here, and the perps were getting away with murder.