Curry & Chips (TV Series) Episode #1.1 (1969) User Reviews

It's not a bad first episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 14 October 2023]

Pakistani born Irishman Kevin O'Grady lands a job at The Lilicrap Factory, his foreman takes him under his wing, and finds Kevin lodgings, unfortunately his new colleagues aren't quite as accepting.

I came to this after enduring a similar Milligan series called The Melting Pot, in which he also plays a made up Indian, I thought it was trash, I was keen to see if Curry and Chips was better.

I totally get why people would find this racist and offensive, let's be honest it's very offensive, from Milligan's black face to the board of stereotypes.

However, made back in 1969, I'll try to be as balanced as I can, nothing like this could and would be made today, and for good reason.

Some amusing moments, there are glimpses of Spike Milligan's madcap comedy brilliance, but it's not raucously funny, I did laugh at Kevin's scenes with his new landlady.

I'm interested to see how this develops.

6/10.

"That is why I left Pakistan, there are too many w--s there!"

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 31 July 2009]

The first episode of one of the most controversial sitcoms ever broadcast. Kevin O'Grady ( Spike Milligan ), a half-Irish, half-Pakistani, becomes a cleaner at 'Lillycrap Ltd', a factory devoted to making novelties for seaside towns. Arthur Blenkinsop ( Eric Sykes ), the foreman, introduces him to the workforce. They already have a black man working there - Kenny ( Kenny Lynch ) - and do not want another. "I voted Labour all my life!", whines Norman ( Norman Rossington ), "But when it comes to blacks, I'm with Enoch!". In the canteen, O'Grady refuses to eat his dinner on religious grounds. When a sexy girl walks by, he tries to fit in by making a wolf whistle and referring to her as 'crumpet lady'. At the pub, Arthur introduces his new friend to Tom ( Jerold Wells ), another bigot. Tom is worried that O'Grady is after his wife, who happens to be rather plain looking. "You think I give it one?", responds O'Grady, alarmed. Arthur takes O'Grady back to Mrs.Bartok's ( Fanny Carby ) boarding house. "As you're Irish, I put a dumpling in your curry!", she says ( Milligan struggles not to laugh here ). Kenny warns Arthur that O'Grady might be gay...

Written by Johnny Speight for the fledgling London Weekend Television, and starring some of the best comedy talent of the day, it should be funny - it is. Meera Syal might not like it ( she tore it to pieces on a Channel 4 retro programme some years ago ) but I personally found it funnier than anything she's been involved in. As was the case with 'Till Death Us Do Part', you can either laugh at the racists or with them. Anyone who did the latter was a fool though. They are thick as two short planks. O'Grady gets the better of them each time.

Milligan is...well, exactly how you would expect. Unlike dear old Michael Bates in 'It Ain't Half Hot, Mum' ( also now regarded as racist nowadays ) who put some reality into his performance, Spike is obviously a white man in make-up. A joke is made of this in the show. "What part of Ireland are you from? ", Tom asks him, "Burnt cork?". I found him a lot less offensive than say 'Little Britain' or Sacha Baron Cohen's much-applauded take-offs of ethnic minorities.

Sykes' character is more liberal-minded than the others at 'Lillycrap Ltd' so there's an attempt at balance here. Unfortunately, this was lost in later episodes. Pity.

Funniest moment - O'Grady announcing he wants to work to help the Queen and Prince Philip out of their financial problems ( it was bandied about at the time by the right-wing media that the Royal Family were hard-up. 'The Goodies' also referred to this in their opening show ).

More racist language is to be heard here than in any programme I can remember seeing. But it is necessary - to ridicule racism, you first have to depict it. Syal is wrong to assume that all white people who saw this were on the side of the bigots.

The promise in this first episode was sadly not maintained. The last three are quite dreadful, with virtually no plots, mainly consisting of people standing around arguing. The last - centred around a Christmas party - bears an unfortunate resemblance to the infamous 'Till Closing Time Do Us Part' episode of Speight's most famous creation. If you only have the first three, stick with them. They are the best of a bad bunch.

A Period-Piece That Provides Living Evidence of Racist Attitudes in Britain

[l_rawjalaurence · 4/10 · 2 May 2016]

Written by Johnny Speight and broadcast on the then fledgling London Weekend Television network, CURRY AND CHIPS purported to be a "comedy" focusing on racist attitudes among the white working classes. As with Speight's better-known TILL DEATH US DO PART, the script was designed to expose the ignorance and stupidity of those having to work alongside a person of color.

But is this really the case? The person of color in this case is Kevin O'Grady, an Irish Pakistani played by a heavily made-up Spike Milligan. While Milligan was born in India and spent much of his childhood there, it is still somewhat shocking to see him play the central comic role with a mock-Indian accent. Such mimicry not only denigrates but marginalizes.

The white characters, including Mr. Blenkinsop (Eric Sykes) and a variety of stereotypes (played by Geoffrey Hughes, Norman Rossington, Kenny Lynch and Fred Hugh, amongst others) have a fine time making jokes about Kevin's race, his background, skin-color, and inability to "fit in" to mainstream British life. The level of racist language used is, quite simply, shocking; but the studio audience don't seem to mind, as they bray away maniacally on the soundtrack.

It's all very well to claim that Speight had a satiric purpose in writing the series, or that CURRY AND CHIPS was nothing more than "a bit of fun," and thus not to be taken seriously; but nonetheless we are prompted to wonder precisely what was LWT's purpose in commissioning the series in the first place. Attitudes might have altered significantly since the series was broadcast nearly half a century ago, but the fact that it is still available on video as well as online suggests that there are viewers ready and willing to tolerate such unacceptable material. If such is the case, then racist attitudes can be said not to have changed very much.

Episode 1

[Prismark10 · 3/10 · 27 September 2020]

Writer Johnny Speight was a champagne swigging socialist who drove around in a Rolls Royce. He had an obsession examining Tory working class supporters who peddled petty discriminatory attitudes. This was put in best effect in the classic BBC comedy series Till Death Do Us Part with Warren Mitchell playing the bigoted Alf Garnett.

Spike Milligan was an influential Indian born, half Irish actor, writer and comedian.

In the first episode of Curry & Chips. Milligan darkens up to play Kevin O'Grady, a part Pakistani and Irish man who has come over from Pakistan to find work in a London factory.

Kevin faces discrimination from the factory workers. Only the foreman Arthur Blenkinsop (Eric Sykes) shows sympathy to Kevin. Even the black worker Kenny (Kenny Lynch) dislikes Kevin.

Arthur takes Kevin to the pub and he has a hard time. One of the worker intimates that Kevin might be gay, which shocks Arthur as they will be residing in the same boarding house. Although the landlady takes a shine to Kevin even though he has to pay more than white residents.

If you squint you can see elements of Milligan's surrealist Goons approach. The factory makes novelty toys. The problem is that despite the best intentions of Speight and Milligan it gets lost in the execution.

This goes the way of other ITV comedies that wanted to take a humorous approach to discrimination in 1960s and 1970s Britain such as Love Thy Neighbour. It descends into racist name calling. It emboldens the racists as some of the audience seemed to be laughing with them rather than at them.

I can understand why black and asian people felt offended by this series.