Basil Brush in 'racist' gag row

Mon Mar 17 10:58AM by TV Editor

Basil Brush

Basil Brush is being investigated after a complaint was made about an alleged racist joke in the puppet's BBC series.

A complaint was received by the police following a recent screening of an old episode that features the fox telling jokes about gypsies, reports Metro.

The episode, which was originally shown six years ago, features a sketch where a gypsy woman tries to sell Basil some wooden pegs.

A police spokesperson said: "We can confirm we have received a complaint about a TV show featuring Basil Brush from a member of the public in February. The complaint was logged as an incident of a racist nature."

Joseph Jones, a spokesperson for the Romany, Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network, said: "Racist abuse of black people is quite rightly no longer deemed acceptable, but when a comedian makes a joke on TV about pikeys or gypos, there's no comeback."

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