Channel 4 ‘almost wouldn’t show’ Keith Allen’s Nick Griffin documentary

Broadcaster hits out at channel over nerves about broadcast

Keith Allen has claimed that Channel 4 was nervous over screening his interview documentary with BNP leader Nick Griffin.

The broadcaster met with the far right leader for a documentary which aired last night (March 5). But now Allen has said that it sat on the shelf for months, only going ahead after producer Victor Lewis-Smith branded the channel’s chief executive David Abrahams a “spineless cunt”.

Allen wrote in The Independent: “Having recorded and edited the Nick Griffin documentary, I discovered to my chagrin that the problems were only half over. Channel 4, which had been enthusiastic about the idea of me interviewing Griffin, was discomfited by the reality and repeatedly asked for changes and additional lines of didactic narration.

“When one commissioning editor completely misunderstood a sequence about Muslim women in which Griffin was unexpectedly defending them as victims of male violence, she gave such a knee-jerk reaction that I assumed she must have trained with Galvani [Italian physician who studied bioelectricity using the leg muscles of dead frogs].”

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Allen went on to explain: “Eventually, after much patient explanation, Channel 4 said it was pleased with the documentary, but it then sat on the shelf as summer turned into autumn and then to winter. Hence Victor’s outburst of a month ago, as a result of which the programme will finally grace your screens.”

Keith Meets… Nick Griffin aired last night on Channel 4, and is available on now catch-up service 4OD.

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