People Just Do Nothing stars say comedy still dominated by white

• Sattwik Biswal
• 18 August, 2021

By: Sattwik Biswal

THE creators of acclaimed programme People Just Do Nothing have said that the entertainment and journalism industries lack the diversity needed to reflect British society.

The stars of the Bafta-winning show while speaking to Radio Times, said they have been accused of racism by white journalists when depicting their own communities.

“What was so weird was these white journalists early on telling me that doing Chabuddy G’s accent was racist,” said Asim Chaudhry, who plays the character.

“He was based on my dad. How can they think I’m mocking the culture? I am the culture. I just don’t think they’d actually met anyone from that culture before. For some reason, in our industry, all you see is white, middle-class people,” Chaudhry added.

His co-star Allan Mustafa, who plays MC Grindah in the programme, too agreed that there is lack of diversity in comedy.

“We were coming not long after that ‘anti-chav’ comedy of Little Britain, and just doing things on our terms.

“You shouldn’t have to come from Oxford or Cambridge to be funny, but it’s still occurring in the industry in a lot of ways. It’s changing but it needs to change a lot more – not just class but ethnicity, gender. There’s still not enough behind the camera.”