BAFTA-winning British comedy star and The Windsors actor Harry Enfield has waded into the growing debate about white comedians performing in blackface, saying he doesn’t regret doing it in the past.
Interviewed on the Today show on BBC Radio 4, Enfield discussed performing as Nelson Mandela and an Indian man in past sketches and said: “I wouldn’t do it now, but I don’t think I regret it.”
He added that there should be a “conversation” about applying black or brown makeup for a comedy role, particularly when it comes to satirizing public figures. Enfiled said if British chancellor Rishi Sunak became prime minister, he would “find it difficult that I would not be allowed to play him because of the color of his skin.”
He added, however, that some blackface portrayals are far from appropriate. “Obviously, Al Johnson or G H Elliot, who played the Chocolate Coloured...
Interviewed on the Today show on BBC Radio 4, Enfield discussed performing as Nelson Mandela and an Indian man in past sketches and said: “I wouldn’t do it now, but I don’t think I regret it.”
He added that there should be a “conversation” about applying black or brown makeup for a comedy role, particularly when it comes to satirizing public figures. Enfiled said if British chancellor Rishi Sunak became prime minister, he would “find it difficult that I would not be allowed to play him because of the color of his skin.”
He added, however, that some blackface portrayals are far from appropriate. “Obviously, Al Johnson or G H Elliot, who played the Chocolate Coloured...
- 6/11/2020
- by Jake Kanter
- Deadline Film + TV
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