Mid to late (but not ‘Late’ enough) 1970′s racist London Weekend Television sitcom starring the equally ‘late’ Barry Evans. It was a ‘cross’ between ‘Please Sir’ and a B.N.P. training video.
Evans had previously starred in a far more popular LWT sitcom, ‘Doctor in the House’ and accepted the ill-advised lead actor role in the sex romp, ‘Confessions of a Taxi Driver’. A movie in which he spent a large percentage of screen time either in the nude, or with a series of women who were.
In ‘Mind Your Racism’, Evans played a teacher in an evening language class. The students of which chose to sometimes attend class in their ‘national’ dress. This took this early evening sitcom onto a whole new controversial level.
As if to drive its racist themes home even further, the series’ scriptwriter, ‘Vince Powell’, came up with a catchphrase for each foreign student to repeat parrot-fashion throughout the show. The foreign actors said these in all seriousness, whilst the studio audience laughed like drains at them.
Meanwhile Evans, ‘batting for both sides’ sexually speaking, went between his girlfriend (who herself was married to a convicted imprisoned murderer) and having the ‘hot vapours’ for the dancer, Lionel Blair.
Naturally the series eventually crashed and burned in a sea of controversy, but not before trying to make a comeback in the Eighties with a depleted cast. But by then Evans’ acting career was well ‘on the skids’ and it soon sank faster than Eric Pickles in a sheep dip.
To make ends meet, Evans turned (hopefully using his indicators) to taxi driving for real in Leicester (sexual adventures: unknown) but he was sadly found dead in his run-down bungalow on February 9th 1997. Apparently smelling ever so sweetly of alcohol poisoning. He was 53.
Sorry, but it’s all true.
