Abstract
Over the 20 years covered in this book, considerable progress was made in attempting to construct a vision of multiculturalism on British television. It is important to remember this, just as it is important to recognise that UK broadcasters still need to improve their representation of ethnic minorities. Gavin Schaffer’s study explores the thinking that lay behind this initial attempt and gauges its legacy across the succeeding quarter century. He begins by examining the BBC’s Immigrants Programmes Unit and the deliberate, self-conscious efforts made to promote integration. This is followed by chapters on news and current affairs, including the treatment given on television to extreme cases: the far right, Black Power and South African apartheid. Schaffer then turns to an almost-forgotten public-access programme, BBC 2’s Open Door, which began in 1973. The rest of the book focuses on racial sitcoms, which had their heyday during this period, and drama, including several key plays and series. This was a period when Britain was coming to terms with the loss of colonial and imperial power, learning that national identity could no longer centre exclusively around the White nuclear family, and striving to give appropriate expression to multiculturalism. The fact that we are still short of achieving Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) representation on and off screen is emphasised by the call made in August 2014 by 50 leading creative figures, both Black and White, for further improvement. But the efforts made in the 1960s and 1970s were at least a start. Schaffer’s study of what they involved builds on existing work by scholars like Sarita Malik, Stephen Bourne, Karen Ross and Darrell Newton, but adds a good deal that is new, in what is a well-researched, copiously referenced and excellently presented historical account.