Love Thy Neighbour

Love Thy Neighbour is a British television sitcom that was broadcast from 13 April 1972 until 22 January 1976. The show spanned eight series, lasted for 53 episodes (plus an unaired pilot) and was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network. The principal cast consists of Jack Smethurst, Rudolph Walker, Nina Baden-Semper, and Kate Williams. In 1973, the series was adapted into a film of the same name, and a later sequel series was set in Australia. Synopsis The series was created and largely written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver; it was based around a white working class couple (Eddie and Joan Booth) living in Twickenham, in the outer London suburbs, and a black couple (Bill and Barbie Reynolds) as their next-door neighbours. One of the leads, Rudolph Walker, who played Bill Reynolds, wrote in an article for The Guardian in 2001 that the show is about "a black guy and a white guy being damned stupid". Controversy Since 1972, when Love Thy Neighbour was first transmitted, it has been criticised for its poor handling of issues of racism. It was made in an era when Britain was struggling to come to terms with mass immigration, and Love Thy Neighbour was said to exemplify those difficulties. According to writer Sarita Malik, this meant "comedies about race" were really about "blacks signifying trouble" so that consequently "if the White characters did display prejudice, this was deemed funny or understandable given the 'difficulty of the situation'."