BBC Marks Mitchell and Webb Anniversary by Cutting 11 Sketches

The BBC cut 11 sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look on its 20th-anniversary iPlayer return. A spokesman said the four series still include “the ones that still work today and not the ones that don’t.” John Cleese called that social engineering and questioned the licence fee.

The missing pieces are not random outtakes. Several are the bits in which David Mitchell and Robert Webb, playing versions of themselves, already asked whether the joke had gone too far.

What the BBC Cut From Mitchell and Webb

All four series, first shown from 14 September 2006 to 2010 on BBC Two, went back onto iPlayer around that 20-year mark. Viewers then found 11 sketches gone. The BBC confirmed the cull on 21 September 2026. It said the decision was taken “in consultation with the programme makers.”

The show grew out of the Radio 4 series That Mitchell and Webb Sound, which began in 2003. On 20 May 2007 it took the 2007 BAFTA for best comedy, beating The Catherine Tate Show and Little Britain Abroad. The BAFTA record names David Kerr and Gareth Edwards alongside Mitchell and Webb. The series also used Sarah Hadland, Olivia Colman and Daniel Kaluuya.

BBC culture reporter Paul Glynn wrote that the corporation had asked Mitchell and Webb for comment. No public reply from either man had appeared by 25 September 2026.

SKETCHES IDENTIFIED AS MISSING

• Civil War re-enactors: The pair tire of Roundheads and Cavaliers, put on blackface, and restage a conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then call the bit “very, very racist.”
• The burka makeover: Olivia Colman helps host a spoof makeover show; Mitchell, as a contestant in a burka, later peels it back to reveal blackface.
• Garden-centre tribe: A sketch about an indigenous “tribe” living in a garden centre.
• Savile gag: A joke that names Jimmy Savile.
• Other named cuts: Material involving Bill Oddie, a rude Gandhi, and Webb as the late chef Gary Rhodes making homophobic remarks.

That is not a full list of the 11. The BBC has not published titles. Recurring bits that remain include Numberwang, Sir Digby Chicken Caesar, Hennimore, The Event, and the anxious-Nazis sketch that ends “Are we the baddies?”

Those Sketches Were Already Having the Argument

The show’s habit was to cut away to Mitchell and Webb as themselves, poking the previous sketch. The burka makeover uses that trick as the punchline, which is why taking it down reads as the corporation arriving late to a fight the writers staged on purpose.

I’m not sure we quite know what we’re trying to say. Aren’t we just taking the piss out of people’s sincerely held beliefs?

Robert Webb, as himself, in a That Mitchell and Webb Look cutaway

Mitchell’s reply, still in the same cutaway, is the shrug the BBC has now acted on. “I think you can worry too much about this kind of thing. I mean, what’s offensive to one person is just good, clean fun to another.” He then pulls off the burka. The blackface is the second turn, aimed at that shrug, not a straight impression offered as the joke.

The re-enactors sketch works the same way. Webb’s character asks, “Are you absolutely sure that this isn’t racist?” Mitchell answers that it is “a historically accurate recreation of a landmark global conflict,” before the pair quit and admit it is “very, very racist.” Trigger Happy TV’s Dom Joly told interviewers the intent “was not to be racist” and called the iPlayer cuts “classic BBC overkill” and “hysterical censorship.” If a warning were required, he said, “even that is so patronising.”

Hat Trick Productions co-founder Jimmy Mulville would not go that far. “The BBC are in an impossible position,” he said, adding that he “personally… wouldn’t censor anything” while still calling the blackface “a problem.” He also said you “couldn’t even pitch that show these days,” blaming a loss of “nuance in debate” on social media.

The Stars Have Not Said a Word

The corporation’s line is short, and it does a lot of work with one vague noun. “Programme makers” can mean the original producers, the rights holders, or the two men whose names are in the title. The statement never says which.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The official line: A BBC spokesman said this is a 20-year-old sketch show and that, in consultation with the programme makers, iPlayer has kept the sketches that still work today.
• The stars’ silence: Mitchell and Webb have not issued a public comment, and BBC News said it had asked them.
• The warning already there: Series 1, episode 1 on iPlayer is labelled “Contains adult humour,” runs 27 minutes, and is listed as first shown on 14 September 2006.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Who signed off: Whether Mitchell and Webb personally approved each cut has not been stated.
• One staff claim: Adam Solomons, a journalist on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, wrote on 24 September 2026 that the pair “wanted them binned” and that the sketches are “fairly atrocious.” Neither performer has confirmed that.

If the two men did ask for the trims, that would put this closer to an author revising old work than to a nameless standards desk. They still have not said so. Until they do, the public is asked to accept a 20th-anniversary edition whose gaps are explained in one sentence.

Uncut Episodes Remain on Sky and NOW

The iPlayer copy is the one attached to the licence fee. It is also the one with holes. Unedited episodes are still offered on Sky and NOW, with a content warning before each one. The public player already knows how to warn; episode 1 does it on the listing page. The difference is the footage.

WHERE THE SHOW STILL PLAYS

So the cheap, universal copy is the altered one. The complete copy sits on paid apps. Anyone who wants the edited series on BBC iPlayer can start with Series 1, episode 1, which still promises “anxious Nazis, distracted snooker commentators and a mismatched crime fighting duo.” The listing says it remains available for 11 months.

That split is the practical outcome, whatever word the spokesman prefers to “cut.” A licence-fee archive that used to mean “as aired” now means “as aired, minus the sketches a present-day pass failed.”

After Little Britain’s Recut, iPlayer Took It Back

This is not the first time the BBC has treated a sketch show as a living file. Little Britain, which ran from 2003 to 2006, was taken off iPlayer, BritBox and Netflix in June 2020. A spokesman then said historical programmes are “regularly reviewed” and that “times have changed.” Matt Lucas wrote that he and David Walliams were “very sorry” they had played characters of other races.

HOW THE BBC HAS RE-EDITED ITS COMEDY ARCHIVE

1. June 2020: Little Britain leaves BBC iPlayer, BritBox and Netflix after complaints about blackface and other portrayals.
2. 2022: Little Britain later returned to iPlayer after “edits made to the series by Matt and David,” with some episodes carrying a line that it “Contains discriminatory language.”
3. 14 September 2006: That Mitchell and Webb Look begins on BBC Two.
4. 20 to 21 September 2026: The Times reports 11 sketches missing from the anniversary iPlayer drop; the BBC issues its “still work today” statement.
5. 23 September 2026: John Cleese attacks the decision on X and ties it to the licence fee.

The Little Britain return was sold as the stars’ own recut. Lucas and Walliams put their names on the changes. Mitchell and Webb have not done that here, even though the BBC used the same streaming shelf and a cousin of the same explanation. Fawlty Towers had already had a smaller version of the treatment: in 2013, BBC Two trimmed about 20 seconds of Major Gowen’s racist language from “The Germans” for a 7.30pm family slot, after the episode had run uncut for years.

James Dreyfus, who appeared in Gimme Gimme Gimme and The Thin Blue Line, wrote that the Mitchell and Webb material “pokes fun at and ridicules the foolish and ignorant,” and that he would not miss the BBC “in its current incarnation.” His post is the one Cleese chose to share.

Cleese Puts the Licence Fee on the Table

Cleese did not parse individual gags. He went at the corporation’s job description. On 23 September 2026 he wrote that if the BBC “could prioritise making great programmes ahead of social engineering they might be worth the licence fee.” In a second post he added, “The BBC knows what’s best for us. And some of us know what’s best for the BBC.”

If the BBC could prioritise making great programmes ahead of social engineering they might be worth the licence fee

John Cleese, on X, 23 September 2026

That jab lands on a number households already pay. From 1 April 2026, the colour TV licence now costs £180 a year, up £5.50 from £174.50, a 3.14% CPI rise set by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The current BBC Charter runs from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2027, and a Green Paper consultation on future funding is already open.

Comedian Jonathan Pie, in a 23 September 2026 post, said removing sketches because iPlayer curators “assume the public can’t handle intent or context isn’t protecting anyone.” He called it lowering the bar until nobody is allowed to be funny without a signed risk assessment. The sharper institutional point is narrower than that rant. iPlayer already prints a humour warning, and Sky and NOW already run the same episodes with a pre-roll caution. The anniversary pass did not invent a duty of care. It chose deletion on the free player and left the full tape on the paid ones.

Why the Famous Nazi Sketch Survived

The sketch most people can quote was not in the bin. Mitchell and Webb in SS uniforms, glancing at their cap badges and asking “Are we the baddies?”, is still on the iPlayer episodes. Series 1, episode 1 even advertises “anxious Nazis” in the blurb. A lot of the loudest anger treated that scene as the casualty. It is not. The cuts sit on the self-accusing blackface turn, the burka cutaway, the garden-centre tribe, and the rest of the unnamed remainder of the 11.

That mix-up is revealing in a small way. The surviving Nazi bit is already a lecture about failing to notice your own side. The deleted Congo restaging and the burka cutaway are lectures about the same failure, done in makeup the BBC will no longer transmit on iPlayer. Mulville can call that makeup a problem and still be describing the same files Sky will play after a warning. Both things can be true at once: blackface is radioactive in 2026, and a 20th-anniversary “return” that quietly drops the show’s own argument is a strange way to honour the series that won that BAFTA.

Mitchell and Webb can still end the argument with one statement. Until they do, the copy the BBC is offering for the anniversary is not the one BBC Two ran from 14 September 2006. The complete episodes are on Sky and NOW, behind a paywall, with a warning iPlayer already knows how to write.