The Black And White Minstrel Show

Product Information

It is rare in our experience that items go missing entirely, but occasionally they are delayed by a few days.

Build your own unique collection, Rediscover your all-time favourites and find new musical inspiration from all eras and genres. At one point, it was even something of a critical success: in 1961, it won the prestigious Golden Rose of Montreux.

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. For the best part of the next twenty years it didn’t seem to occur to anyone in a position of authority at the BBC that the series really was offensive to more than just a few “killjoys”. 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. However, the second part of the rationale put forward in 1967 – that blacking up was not about race – demands closer examination. I still like the soft side of a more simpler times with a pop standard style often referred to as "Dance Hall Light Entertainment".

The theatrical tradition of the show could then be measured against the histicial background and the continued fight against segregation going on in the United States, here, and elsewhere in the world.The Minstrels sang and danced as a group, often on sets styled like the Southern United States, and always with a smile. It seems to be absurd to imagine that people who are not already racially prejudiced could possible be in the some way contaminated by the Minstrels. CARD’s efforts to name both blacking up and The Black and White Minstrel Show as racist in 1967 marked a turning point, but not the one that West and his fellow signatories sought. The Black and White Minstrel Show was a British light entertainment show that ran on BBC television from 1958 to 1978 and was a popular stage show. If you are looking for a very specific version/pressing/variant please check with us first and we can send pictures.

The Al Jolson films and the 1930s empire films found their way onto the BBC and ITV, often shown at times of the day and year designated as ‘family viewing’. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.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. The Black and White Minstrel Show was created by BBC producer George Inns, working with George Mitchell. Originally, the Television Toppers were dancers who performed weekly on a television programme every Saturday night, alongside different celebrities, such as Judy Garland. My examination of home movies, held in archives such as MACE and the Moving Image Archive, National Library of Scotland indicates that the blackface at the heart of The Black and White Minstrel Show did make an impression on viewers, as ordinary Britons blacked up as minstrels in local pageants, parades and fairs throughout the postwar period.

White British film and television producers, as well as audiences, were unable and unwilling to see blacking up as racist at that point.The Minstrels also had a theatrical show at the Victoria Palace Theatre, produced by Robert Luff, [4] which ran for 6,477 performances from 1962 to 1972, and established itself in The Guinness Book of Records as the stage show seen by the largest number of people. On film, blacked up singers such as the American Al Jolson were popular with British audiences throughout the interwar period and the popularity of G.