For telly addicts, the announcement that the BBC was throwing open the doors to its archive promised a bigger treat than being given the keys to every brewery, restaurant and sweetshop in the country.
We were going to gorge ourselves.
The arrival of BBC Store, an online shop offering 7,000 hours of Auntie’s tastiest offerings to anyone with an internet connection, felt too good to be true. And an initial glance yesterday into the treasurehouse proved oh-so-tantalising.
Here was so much comedy. All of Ab Fab, for instance, and even the deliciously un-PC wartime sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Yes, BBC Store offers much for those who despair of politically correct television.
You never see It Ain’t Half Hot Mum repeated because the BBC bods, to the frustration of its co-creator Jimmy Perry, wince over scenes featuring a white actor, Michael Bates, wearing a turban and in ‘brown-face’ — made-up to look Indian.
The digital download will come with the explanatory disclaimer: ‘An enormous hit of the Seventies, the exploits of a Royal Artillery Concert Party in India in 1945 is an un-PC product of its time but remains a cherished piece of vintage comedy.’
Source: Daily Mail
