BBC Big Night In: Little Britain return stuns viewers with shock ‘bat-eating’ joke

Joke saw wheelchair-bound character Andy telling his carer, Lou, that he wished to have a bat for dinner

Little Britain made a provocative return to the screen for the BBC’s Big Night In charity event, with a controversial joke about eating bats.

David Walliams and Matt Lucas reprised a number of their famous characters for the climactic sketch of the show, albeit while filming themselves separately and wearing homemade costumes.

Viewers were stunned by a particular gag, however, in which Lucas’ character Andy, a man who pretends he requires a wheelchair, tells his carer, Lou (Walliams), that he wishes to eat a bat for dinner.

“Chicken nuggets? Chips? More chips? What would you like to eat?” Lou asks. “Bat,” replies the monosyllabic Andy.

“You wanna eat a bat for your tea?” Lou replies. “I don’t think it’s a good idea eating a bat.”

Andy then uttered his best-known catchphrase: “Yeah, I know.”

A popular internet conspiracy theory claims that the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, after members of the public began eating bats. While the Wuhan Institute for Virology found that the genetic makeup of coronavirus was 96 per cent identical to the kind found in bats, it has not been officially proven to have stemmed from humans ingesting bats.

The search for the origin to the pandemic is ongoing, though a study published this month suggested that coronavirus could have been spread by stray dogs eating bat meat.

On Twitter, viewers were split on the gag.

“Watching the Little Britain comeback sketch to see if they can rectify how problematic they were and the first joke was about eating a bat,” tweeted one audience member.

Another added: “Little Britain have some balls making bat eating jokes.”

One person praised the gag for “pushing boundaries”.

“I wasn’t sure if Little Britain would work due to the current snowflake generation, wasn’t sure if they would be able to push boundaries,” the fan wrote. “First scene is Andy asking to eat bat. Thank you @RealMattLucas @davidwalliams”

The return of Little Britain was one of a number of comedy sketches during the BBC’s Big Night In.

Others included a special message from The Vicar of Dibley’s Reverend Geraldine Granger, and Peter Kay’s return to television after a two-year absence.