Here Come The Minstrels – GEORGE MITCHELL MINSTRELS**

Jolly Good Company(Medley)/Where There’s You There’s Me(Medley)/Without A Song/Going Places (Medley)/ Crazy Tunes(Medley)/Last Round Up/Grand & Glorious(Medley)More Requests(Medley)

Here Come The Minstrels marked the seventh and final appearance of The Black & White Minstrels in the UK album top twenty. The successful BBC TV series would continue for another decade. (UK:11)

"It was probably watched by the older generation who thought nothing of the fact that the singers were white men blacked up. They just saw it as entertainment with songs that had a sentimental meaning to them."

"I used to really enjoy the songs when I was younger .... of course that would not be 'politically correct' these days would it?"

"It has always saddened me that delightful family entertainment such as the Minstrel Show should be branded 'racist'. I watched it many times and can honestly say that it never occurred to me for one moment that it was parodying black people."

"Thinking back now, it must have been in 1962 that The Minstrels started their West End run at the Victoria Palace. That was a wonderful show that I saw many, many times. There was never anything racist about The Black and White Minstrels - their shows were good honest entertainment and that is the way we all watched them."

"By the mid-1960s many people felt The Black and White Minstrel Show was insensitive. On 18 May 1967, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination delivered a petition to the BBC signed by people from different racial backgrounds, which requested that the programme be taken off the air. However, the programme continued to be shown until July 1978."

"Looked at from a contemporary perspective, the show is laughable in its underlying racist pretence and its harking back to the old Deep South, and the weekly sight of pretty women serenaded by smiling, obedient black slaves. Yet at the time it was hugely popular. It won the Golden Rose of Montreux in 1961, and consistently commanded audiences of 16 million. Robert Luff's stage adaptation opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre and broke all box-office records."