Time for some controversy, so -

"Ladies and gentlemen - It's the Black and White Minstrel Show!!!"

Brian White has sent me a copy of the BBC book of The Black and White Minstrel Show, published in 1962 price 7s 6d, and still available second-hand from Amazon.co.uk



For any non-BBC camera visitors to this site, The Black and White Minstrel Show was a glitzy version of the Kentucky minstrels featuring white men dressed and painted up to represent black men of the early 19th century, and white women in not too many clothes. They sang songs from the Kentucky minstrels and also modern (20th century) ones. The show was a major success for twenty years, and won big awards at international festivals.

"Blacking up" the men followed a tradition several hundred years old, and was seen at the time as a homage to a much loved black American musical culture, but times change, and of course at some point the show became very non-pc, and has never been seen again after it ended along with most of the rest of British tv variety in the late 1970's. Someone was telling me the other day that he walked back into Television Centre recently and stood in Red Assemby (tea bar), and there was absolute silence..... apart from perhaps the ghosts singing and acting their etherial hearts out.

For camera crews "Black and Whites" was another day at the showbiz factory, fairly demanding as the cameras were as much part of the choreography as the dancers themselves. In the later series a small event looked forward to by the crew was when the producer, an ex-dancer, came down to the floor, waited until he thought no-one was looking and tapped out a few steps. Now I understand his nostalgia....

Eddie Stuart on the Mole during rehearsal
In the gallery - From right - PA Pat Molloy, producer George Inns, vision mixer Gladys Davies (no knitting?), and TM Dave Sydenham. Brian says: "Through the glass the three members of the gallery sound crew who seem to be contemplating some problem with different attitudes are Eric Wallis - "I'm just visiting", Trevor Webster - "I shouldn't worry, mate", and sound supervisor Adrian Stocks tearing his hair out.
Tom "Monty" Moncrieff, the lighting supervisor
Camera 2 on the right, with Ian Gibb "The show always relied heavily on the expertise of Ian, Eddie Stuart and Senior Cameraman Eric Furze"
"The men and women behind the producer"

Twenty million people watched The Black and White Minstrel show every week for twenty years. It won a number of international awards, ran in a London theatre for many years and toured theatres around the country.

Was it offensive? I suppose if people say they're offended then they were. If the men hadn't been blacked up would anyone have been offended, given that it was basically a celebration of a type of music the original black makers presumably were proud of? When we dress someone up in a wig and gown and have him lark about and fart on screen as Mozart in Amadeus, should Austrians be offended?


An addendum - in a strange coincidence after all this time, on 14th Aug 2004 BBC4 ran a documentary about the Black and White Minstels and its demise. Lots of clips and relevant people saying their piece.
As far as the arguments were concerned, nothing seemed to have changed. George Mitchell's wife amongst other white people said that they meant no harm, didn't even connect the minstrels with real people, and that black people including the West Indies cricket team had enjoyed the show - and some black people said it was an insult.
Apart from the controversy, what did come over in the clips was an energy and buzz rather missing from current tv. Oh, and the current Ernie Maxim looked - different - almost younger after 25 years, somehow.....