Tracey Ullman: Comic making BBC return says political correctness didn’t stop her 'blacking up' in US show

'I wanted to be a black woman and everyone was like "we can’t do that!" And we did it and it was great'

Ullman, stars in a new BBC1 sketch show, her first home-grown series in almost three decades (Getty Images)

Political correctness must not sanitise comedy and inhibit controversial material, Tracey Ullman has warned, ahead of the performer’s return to the BBC.

Ullman, who enjoyed Emmy-winning success after launching a new career in Los Angeles, stars in a new BBC1 sketch show, her first home-grown series in almost three decades.

“I’ve done really big, bold things in my career,” she said at a Bafta screening of Tracey Ullman’s Show. “I saw Eddie Murphy play a white woman in the 80s and I said I wanted to be a black woman on my (US) show. Everyone was like ‘oh, we can’t do that!’ And we did it and it was great and it worked.”

“I wanted to be a Chinese donut shop owner and a cabbie of indeterminate Middle-Eastern background. If you start questioning yourself with this PC stuff it can be really sanitising and repress you.”

“I think with the right script and energy and it’s funny then let’s do it. It has to be real. You have to be bold and you do have to take on stuff and not be inhibited.”

Ms Ullman’s US characters included “Sheneesha”, an African-American airport security guard and a Mrs Noh Nang Ning, which prompted complaints from some Asian-American viewers.

Ullman, 56, impersonates Angela Merkel in her BBC show, imagining the German Chancellor as a vain gossip, obsessed with her image and jealous of Nicola Sturgeon.

She also presents Dame Judi Dench as a shoplifting kleptomaniac and mocks the Duchess of Cornwall’s obsession with country pursuits. But Ms Ullman said her portrayals were “affectionate” and her writing team said they pulled back from characterisations they considered too cruel.

Asked why she was returning to UK screens, Ullman said: “I hadn’t been given a job in so long. I met Charlotte Moore (BBC1 Controller) and Myfanwy Moore (Executive Producer) and I realised there were some girls in charge at the BBC. Thirty years ago it was a lot of men who talked about The Goons.”

Ullman enjoyed Emmy-winning success after launching a new career in LA (Getty) (Getty Images)

The show has a political edge, with sketches about library closures imposed by “Tory cuts” and an illegal immigrant who hitches a ride to suburbia from Calais. It will run after the new, extended Ten O’Clock News on Monday nights, in competition with Newsnight.

Ms Ullman said she received special permission from the “very top” at the BBC not to pixelate a pair of prosthetic nipples for a sketch in which she plays a feminist MP, who pledged to remain topless throughout her term.

A Bafta lifetime achievement award winner, who made her breakthrough in the early 80s with the sketch show Three Of A Kind, Ms Ullman said the biggest change during her career was the breakthrough of female comics. “Comedy in the early 80s was Benny Hill and girls getting their bottoms pinched. Then French & Saunders revolutionised everything. Now Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are opening movies but we’ve still got to do more.”

She added: “Most of my (new series) characters are older women and you just don’t see older women on mainstream TV. I had lots of fantastic actresses who came to help me.”

Ms Ullman expects viewers to watch the sketches on-demand rather than make a date with her show’s late 10.45pm time slot. “I don’t think you have appointment to view TV any more. Very few people mark a programme out in the Radio Times and just watch it. People watch on catch-up.”

The comedian’s warnings over the detrimental impact of political correctness on comedy followed a complaint from Barry Humphries that the BBC's “puritanism” prevented him making a joke about Jeremy Corbyn. “There's a fear of treading on people's toes and I don't like it,” he told Radio Times.

Tracey Ullman’s Show, BBC1, Monday January 11, 10.45pm