Racism row over ‘Living With The Lams’, BBC children’s comedy about British-Chinese family, written by mainly white team
- Living With The Lams is about a British-Chinese family running a restaurant in Manchester
- According to people who have seen scripts, it is riddled with racist clichés
British East Asian writers and actors are paying homage to their grandmothers on Twitter amid a growing furore over a planned BBC children’s comedy sitcom about a Chinese family, written by a predominantly white team.
The series Living With The Lams, has been commissioned by the BBC’s children’s channel CBBC and will tell the story of a British-Chinese family running a restaurant in Manchester.
But according to people who have seen the scripts of the first two pilot episodes, both written by non-Asians, it is riddled with racist clichés.
More than 200 actors and writers have signed a letter to the controller of CBBC Cheryl Taylor demanding it reconsiders and uses Chinese writers instead.
They are alarmed that according to those who have seen the pilot scripts, Living With The Lams is scattered with racist terms like “chongers”, has a father who plays in a band called Wok and Roll and a grandmother who spits and eats fortune cookies all day.
But according to the spontaneous tweets at #RealAsianGranny, real life is far more interesting than any script a white writer could dream up.