BBC cuts Mitchell and Webb blackface sketches from iPlayer

The BBC has removed eleven scenes from That Mitchell and Webb Look before putting all four series on iPlayer for the show's twentieth anniversary.

The cuts, reported by The Times and covered by Chortle and other outlets, include sketches with blackface. One has David Mitchell and Robert Webb as English Civil War re-enactors who restage a clash in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with Webb asking whether the bit is racist. Another parodies a makeover show involving a burqa and ends with blackface. Further removed sketches cast Webb as a shopper meeting an apparent indigenous "tribe" living in a garden centre. A spoof news clip that used an image of Jimmy Savile, aired in 2008 before his crimes were public, was also cut.

A BBC spokeswoman said the anniversary release includes sketches that "still work today" and not the ones that do not, after consultation with the programme makers. It is unclear whether Mitchell and Webb personally signed off. On Sky's Now TV, the series still runs uncut with a caption warning about standards of its time. Trigger Happy TV creator Dom Joly called the BBC move "classic overkill." Producer Jimmy Mulville said nuance is harder in the social media age, while also calling blackface a problem.

Archive comedy keeps colliding with present taste. Broadcasters either contextualise old material, cut it, or leave it with a warning. Each choice becomes its own story.

Mitchell and Webb built jokes that often turned on whether a sketch was racist, which is why some defenders say removing those beats flattens the point. Others say blackface itself is the problem, whatever the punchline intended. The split is the news: same footage, two integrity claims.

Watch whether the BBC publishes a clearer list of what was cut, and whether Mitchell or Webb speak for themselves. Streaming copies on other platforms will keep the uncut versions in circulation either way.