Picture from Moviestore Collection/Rex

If a history book was ever written about situation comedy, then Till Death Us Do Part will be brushed aside into the footnotes of 'it was acceptable back then' along such questionable shows as Mind Your Language, Curry & Chips, and the bar to which all olden days comedy racism is held, Love Thy Neighbour. None of these shows will ever achieve a mainstream repeat due to their content and rightly so, but in the case of Till Death the truth is that all those who condemn it have missed the point. While Alf Garnett was undeniably a racist character, Till Death Us Do Part was not written as a racist sitcom.

The programme was written as a satire of a certain attitude and was of the time. Garnett was of the generation that saw the mid-late 1950s wave of immigration from the West Indies and bore those opinions out of fear of the unknown. It is hard to believe nowadays that people actually thought that a black neighbour would have decreased the value of their house and that 'they' were all criminals. The viewer was not meant to laugh with Alf, they were meant to laugh at him, the true hero of the show was Alf's wife Elsie, played with understated brilliance by Dandy Nichols. What fell apart was that the character gained a following among the thick-necked knuckle draggers who held Alf up as a poster boy for their very real beliefs. Warren Mitchell once told a story of being stopped at a football match once by such a crowd who told him that they "love it when you have a go at them wogs" to which Mitchell replied "Actually I'm having a go at fucking idiots like you". 

I have seen a few episodes of Till Death and it does stand up alongside the so-called 'kitchen sink drama' of the 1950s, albeit a comic version. The portrayal of working class life in a run down council house during that era of the husband going to work, returning for his dinner before washing his face and going to the pub was as realistic as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Of course it makes sense for the BBC not to show it nowadays given the content but maybe there's room for a repeat run in light of recent events. The terrible events that took place in Paris yesterday have brought out the misguided racist opinion spewers who want to blame all Muslims for what happened and seem intent on filling social media with all manner of ill-informed cuntery. How poignant that Warren Mitchell should die on the day that the descendants of his most famous character are having a field day.

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