Humphrey Barclay

Humphrey Barclay BEM (born 24 March 1941, Dorking, Surrey, England) is a British comedy executive and producer.

Quotes

• It seems we make sitcoms work by luck rather than design.
  [The American method] They fund a sitcom expensively right up front because they know if they get it right it'll make everybody's fortune.
• [On pitching ideas to programme commissioners] When I am turned down, my first thought may be that the person concerned is an idiot. But perhaps he isn't. Perhaps what I am offering has simply got to be better.
  • From an interview, as cited in "Funny Money", Sunday Telegraph (7Days magazine, 21 January 1990), p. 47

• I feel there is terrible prejudice [...] I think it's to do with laziness and preconceptions principally laziness and fear on the part of the establishment. I have a reasonably wide knowledge of the black talent available on paper and on stage and am constantly amazed by it. I have a feeling that people in the seats of power in television entertainment don't know about it because they haven't bothered to explore it.
  • From an interview, as cited in "Changing the picture", The Guardian (24 October 1991), p. 38
  • Barclay's production company was responsible for the situation comedy Desmond's, a rare British series with an almost exclusively African Caribbean cast.

About Barclay

• Humphrey can't be left to do it on his own. It's not enough for the industry to say: "Of course, we're doing out bit for racial equality — we've got Humphrey Barclay, haven't we?"
  • Lenny Henry, as cited in "Lenny's race against prejudice", The Daily Telegraph (23 January 1993), p. 19
  • According to the article, Barclay had cast Henry (then still in his teens) in the sitcom The Fosters (1976–77), the first British television comedy series with a largely African Caribbean cast.