The only ‘REALLY DISGUSTING’ thing about ‘Citizen Khan’ was the stupid ‘Brummie’ accent perpetrated by the actor paying ‘Citizen Dave’ (sic) the Mosque Manager in my opinion….We need to know more about other peoples’ traditions and cultures so I welcome ‘Citizen Khan’ as an important step along that particular road, otherwise Birmingham will become ‘ghettoised’ with people living in ethnic silos in their own suburbs……In London, all races, creeds and cultures live ‘cheek by jowl’ mostly together and there are no particular ‘ethnic’ be it white, black, yellow or brown neighbourhoods. This is patently not the case in Birmingham and until we learn about our neighbours’ culture and way of life we will not be truly ‘One Birmingham’…..a great diverse melting pot of a city….Oh and another thing, the correspondent who criticises ‘Citizen Khan’ for poking fun at (Aktar) Islam (sic again!) saying that there are no similar sitcoms parodying Judaism or Christianity needs to watch more TV….what about Dawn French’s comedy female vicar Geraldine in the BBC’s Christianity-parodying ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ or the recent BBC2 hit sitcom ‘Rev’….? Or Channel 4’s excellent ‘Father Ted’. All three poke fun at Christianlty mercilessly. I think some of those following The Qu’ran need to take their religion far less seriously and need to develop a particularly British trait: tolerance and being able to laugh at oneself, the typical self-deprecating ‘Brummie’ humour if you like? And as for there being no ‘Jewish Jokers’ poking fun at the Jewish faith please, please please look on YouTUbe at the much-missed Jack Rosenthal’s ‘Bar Mitzvah Boy’ or anything that his lovely widow Maureen Lipman is in, such as the 80’s BT TV adverts. And what about the great American tradiition of ‘Jewish’ comics…..from the Marx Brothers, to Woody Allen, to Jackie Mason, to Jerry Seinfeld…..are they not ‘taking the Mickey’ out of Jews……Sorry about the rant……I rest my case M’lud, Citizen Khan is in the dock on ‘Trumped-Up charges. In my eyes it is an excellent sitcom in the tradition of ‘Love They Neighbour’ pillorying racism and pointing up its stupidity and paints a very positive portrait of a vibrant ‘Multi-Cultural’ diverse Sparkhill in Bimingham…..one other thing…..why couldn’t the BBC film the interior scenes in Birmingham rather than Manchester? Ah…..yes I forgot the BBC abandoned Birmingham in favour of Manchester…..Birmingham with its fantastic tradition of ground-breaking TV production at the former ATV studios in Broad Street which gave us the revolutionary and anarchic TISWAS
Citizen Khan
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Keith Bracey the Brummie Bard Birmingham & Black Country poet & writer 