Love Thy Neighbour

I have just tonight starting watching this, since my childhood. Now I was only young when I was first allowed this, I think maybe around thirteen. At that time it was all about the phrases " I'll hav alv" " sambo" "nignog" " honkey" "snowflake" etc.

As so rightly stated often by other reviews, it is not racist in the slightest. Eddie did tend to come off worse, but always came across as ignorant and bigoted. Did it make me racist, not all. In fact this show perhaps embedded the pointlessness of being racist and the stupidity of racist people. It is also not so far fetched as one might imagine. It's set up in the north of England, I lived up north, Yorkshire, in a town with a large Asia population. They was a lot of prejudice about. One example, when the holidays came, a lot of the kids would go what they called " paki bashing". Even my dad was a racist, though I would rather prefer to say ignorant, perhaps still is. I am thankful of this show, it showed me that people are people and race and skin shade should not be a barrier. There's good and bad in everyone. Actually I think the powers that be, need us to have prejudice against each other.

* not word for word but was a line Bill said in series 1 episode 3. Eddie had been his normal ignorant self.

This would have gone over my head in my youth, although I might not have seen it before.

Still funny as I remembered, but perhaps for very different reasons this time around.

A fun enjoyable comedy, good for forgetting your troubles to. It has a bad reputation these days as a racist show. And it's true that racial tension is the main theme, and racist slurs are often used.

However, this is not a show that a white supremacist would write. A black guy (Bill) and a white guy (Eddie) have petty conflicts, and Bill usually wins. The white guy in most episodes makes a total idiot of himself.

Neither do they really hate each other. One episode has Eddie dance naked round a tree to release a voodoo curse he believes he's put on Bill. It's basically macho posturing between the two guys which leads to them falling out and making.

So while it does have racist language, its underlying message is far more "woke" than is often imagined. It never punches down at the black characters. And it's genuinely funny.

A controversial, yet classic sitcom from the 70's. Based around the lives of Eddie (the proud British unionist), his wife Joan, Bill (the proud black ethnic tory)and his lovely wife Barbie. Often stereotyped by those who have never really watched the series as 'racist', Love Thy Neighbour was far removed from such a stereotype. Looking at the lighter side of the attitudes at the time, Eddie's and Bill's disagreements were perfectly balanced with friendship (who could forget the episode when Eddie drags Bill out on the town?!).

Eddie and Bill's characters are presented as equals, and both have different views on life (whether it'd be labour, tory, or black power!) but more often than not, when they argue and bicker, both come out looking as bad as each other.

Anybody faulting Love Thy Neigbhour for it's views should take a closer look at the series first. A show that positioned Bill (Rudolph Walker) in such a prominant powerful role, and presented him as such a strong upstanding character was way ahead of it's time (when other shows were still presenting ethnic minorities as 'comedy' characters).

This show was the antithesis of racist. Bright, fashionable black couple live next door to ignorant, brutish white man and win the upper hand in every episode. Most black characters at the time were laughed at whereas here we clearly are meant to laugh with him. The script was amusing rather than funny, but it makes for an enjoyable comedy of manners.

Remembering this as a kid, I seem to recall finding it very funny with strong characters and a memorable them tune. From an age when situation comedy was far funnier than its modern counterparts.

Listening to people talking about it today, you would think it was racist - the main complaint that you laughed with Eddie Booth rather than at him. However, i always remember his black neighbour coming out on top most of the time. So I'm not so sure it really did reinforce those stereotypes. At least it was a depiction of how some white working class people felt at the time.

Maybe it was a little over the top and certainly wouldn't be shown in our present PC times. But you've got to take it as a period piece. For me it was very memorable and at least broke one mould for me in having the first black actress I fancied in the shape of Nina- Bade Semper - She was gorgeous.

It would be interesting to see a couple of episodes again to see if it really was that offensive and perhaps to gauge how we have moved on as regards to race relations.