Comedy is really dominated by white men, says Sally Phillips
Sally Phillips wants to see more women working on BBC comedies.
Sally Phillips believes there should be more women working on BBC comedy shows.
The 56-year-old writer - who co-created and co-wrote the comedy sketch show Smack The Pony - believes there are still too few women contributing to BBC comedy series.
During an appearance on the Girls On Film podcast, Sally explained: "Obviously there’s a lot more women doing comedy, and there’s probably a lot more female producers of comedy. But I think things are not okay.
"The stats on women directing and writing comedy TV comedy are pretty heinous. I think it’s 11 per cent of all TV comedies are directed by women only and the BBC I think that’s eight per cent."
Sally jokingly added: "I’m never going to be employed by the BBC again."
The acclaimed writer believes the surface-level statistics are more concerning than they might appear.
She explained: "If you remove the people who are married to BBC commissioners, that goes down to three per cent.
"Writers rooms … this is more or less right … might be 18 percent writers rooms, sort of 17/18 percent mixed. But solo pieces written by women is a lot lower.
"And when you look at women of colour, I think it’s 4.5 percent comedies directed by women, but they do disproportionately well.
"So we should have more things written and directed by women of colour. Well by women in general, particularly women of colour."
Sally acknowledged that BBC comedy is still "dominated by white men".
She said: "Comedy is really, really dominated by white men. And it’s really hard to break away from that because if you’re not given chances then you’re not given a chance to fail actually."
Meanwhile, Sally previously joked that she looks "ridiculously old" on screen because she has never had Botox or fillers.
The acclaimed writer quipped: "I do feel my age actually. I may as well be honest. Not doing any Botox or having my face stung off by jellyfish and inserted with plastics.
"So you feel very aware every time you're on telly, every time you see yourself. I feel pretty happy in real life, but within the world of the screen, I look ridiculously old."
