“Welcome to Sparkhill, Birmingham”: Regionality and Race in Citizen Khan

Elliott, Paul (2023) “Welcome to Sparkhill, Birmingham”: Regionality and Race in Citizen Khan. In: UK and Irish Television Comedy Representations of Region, Nation, and Identity. Palgrave Studies in Comedy, 1 . Palgrave, London, pp. 63-79. ISBN 978-3-031-23628-0

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Abstract

'A Chapter on humour, race and Birmingham'
When Citizen Khan was first broadcast on BBC One on 27th August 2012, at the less than popular timeslot of 10:30, it reignited a series of debates about the role of comedy in the representation of British minority communities on television. Ever since the 1960s, the British sitcom has attempted to tackle head-on the issues of race and ethnicity as they are experienced and articulated through the popular imagination. The sitcom and the comedy sketch show have often been viewed as mirrors for the social mindset, and the act of laughter as a way of circumnavigating the mediating Super-Ego that is drama or documentary (Medhurst, 2007, 16). If ‘serious drama’ attempts to explore social concerns, and the documentary to understand them, then, traditionally, comedy is thought of as a way of blasting a path through them and of bringing them out into the open.

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