People are looking back at Little Britain and saying it's now 'cringe'

People are looking back at Little Britain and feel it's a little 'cringe' with a modern lens.

A Reddit user posed a question to the forum, asking people their thoughts on the British show, especially in the age of cancel culture.

“Most of the sketches I think were fairly hit and miss, but Lou and Andy was absolutely profound,” they began.

“People think it is just about a chancer pretending to be disabled, when it is much more about the often dysfunctional dynamic between carer and those they are caring for.

"Lou is every bit as dependent on Andy as vice-versa. He uses Andy as a[n] excuse for his own unacceptable behaviour (stealing flowers from a memorial) and as a form of crutch.

“As they say it is often the carer that dies first before the person they are caring for.”

Users had they say and it wasn't very positive.

One chimed in with: “It’s awful when it’s punching down, with the Vicky Pollard character being the worst in my book."

Another user agreed, writing: “Same here, I found it unbelievably cringy at the time. It made me so uncomfortable and I thought something was wrong with me because it felt like everyone watched it and found it hilarious.”

Another said: “I could not understand how it got commissioned, filmed, aired, watched and praised.”

A fourth commented with: "I was a teenager when it was out, or very young twenties and I’ve always been pretty immature, so I found it quite funny at the time. Nowadays, well let’s just say I don’t think it’s aged very well."

BBC

While another claimed that the sketch show often hit below the belt, always opting for a cheap laugh.

“Same. Cheap, nasty laughs back then. It was always a more vicious and less funny version of The Fast Show,” they wrote.

However, some fans defended the series for its humour.

One person wrote: “I liked it. They took the p*** out of everyone. Anyone could get it.”

While another said: “It was full of irony. I loved the fat fighters parts.Cut it in half and because it’s only half the calories you can have twice as much! Personally think it was brilliant, a little stupid with the humour but it was good.”

The show, which starred Matt Lucas and David Walliams and ran from 2003 to 2006, faced significant backlash after returning to BBC iPlayer in 2020.

The Telegraph journalist Anita Singh shared screenshots from a sketch where Walliams describes an Asian student over the phone.

She notes that the character says the student has ‘yellowish skin’ and a ‘slight smell of soy sauce’ and refers to him as ‘the Ching-Chong Chinaman’.

Following the criticism, BBC edited the series to 'better reflect the changes in the cultural landscape', as per RadioTimes.

In a 2017 interview with Big Issue, Lucas touched upon the show's most controversial scenes.

“If I could go back and do Little Britain again, I wouldn’t make those jokes about transvestites. I wouldn’t play Black characters,” he said.

“Basically, I wouldn’t make that show now. It would upset people. We made a more cruel kind of comedy than I’d do now.”