Uncovering Forgotten, Unseen and Contested Representations of ‘Black Britain’: Gloo Joo (1979) and Meadowlark (1982)

Abstract

Drawing on archival research (largely housed in the Channel 4 archive) and textual analysis, this article examines the controversial single television play, Gloo Joo (1979) and a mooted ‘spin-off’ series, Meadowlark (1982), for which a pilot (‘Brixton Tree of Life’) was commissioned and made by London Weekend Television for Channel 4, but not transmitted. Both dramas were written and filmed during periods of heightened racial tension and their production histories help to reveal some of the pressures and intentions lying behind the commissioning process at ITV and Channel 4 in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The article indicates how the programmes were commissioned during an important period of transition in the development of black British television drama and comedy and reveal a nascent ‘cultural shift’ in black representation whereby it was no longer acceptable for black characters and their lived experiences to serve as ‘the butt of the joke’. I also argue that this ‘cultural shift’ owed a particular debt to Channel 4’s innovative agenda for multicultural programming.