Matt Lucas admits new Little Britain ‘will be different in many ways’

Matt Lucas has said that the new version of ‘Little Britain’ “will be different in many ways” to avoid backlash.

The 49-year-old comedian - who worked with David Walliams on the BBC sketch show from 2003 until 2006 - will be bringing a new version of the series back to screens but has insisted that the upcoming reboot will not be as offensive as the first iteration of the programme.

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, he said: “The show will be different in many ways.

“We are talking about how we can have diverse talent on screen and in the writers’ room and conceive it as something which is just not about me and David playing absolutely everyone.

“That is something we should have done but didn’t do back then.

“But we were making the show at the same time as many other people who were doing what we were doing and had that approach.”

The show had previously come under fire for its use of blackface, as well as utilizing ethnic and social stereotypes deemed by some to be derogatory.

Since the show moved to BBC iPlayer, it has come with a warning that notifies viewers of its potentially offensive content.

Matt went on to add that neither he nor his co-writer want to cause any "further upset" with their new project as he mused that things have "changed" a lot in the 20 years since the BAFTA Award-winning sketch show first aired.

He said: “Because some people are upset about what we do, or what we have done, out of respect to those people I don’t talk about it publicly because I don’t want to cause further upset to people who were upset.

“I totally accept there are different opinions.

“I accept people feel very differently from others and I respect everyone’s opinion from wherever they come from on this subject. I see things differently now to how we did.

“Things have changed and I respect that.”