The production company behind The Repair Shop have responded to reports that the BBC scrapped a Bob Monkhouse segment over viewer concerns. The show sees members of the public bring personal items and heirlooms for expert craftspeople to fix.
According to The Sun, Monkhouse's adopted daughter Abigail Williams and his comedy writing partner Colin Edmonds brought in some of the comedian's handwritten joke books for restoration.
The joke books were reportedly considered too offensive and unsuitable for broadcast, leading the production company Ricochet to remove them from the show.
Responding to the decision, Joanna Ball, managing director of Ricochet, said: "We planned to fix the joke book, but when we got it to the barn and saw it in its entirety, we realised it contained many jokes that were not appropriate for a programme.
"We explained this to the family and returned the book to them. We did not complete filming of the item, so it was never included in the programme."
A prominent fixture on British television, Monkhouse died of prostate cancer in 2003 aged 75.
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His extensive collection of joke books, amassed over 25 years, was stolen in 1995. After Monkhouse offered a £10,000 reward, the books were returned 18 months later.
Per the BBC, the entertainer left the collection of handwritten books to his writing partner in his will, in a clause that read: "I give all my gag books, specifically the two loose-leaf handwritten files and the eight loose-leaf typewritten files in their pilot cases, and all the copyright therein, free of inheritance tax, to Colin Edmonds."
Despite claims that an entire episode had been pulled, a spokesperson for the BBC shared a statement with Digital Spy saying: "It is entirely untrue that an episode has or is being pulled. An item was not repaired and did not feature in the programme out of consideration for all viewers. Production evaluates each and every item and decisions on which to run are made with the viewer in mind. It was a production decision which we supported."
A spokesperson for Plank PR, which handles The Repair Shop, added: "The Repair Shop is a programme made up of a number of items that are fixed so no one item makes a whole episode."
According to BBC News, representatives for Edmonds and Williams declined to comment.
The Repair Shop airs on BBC One and streams on BBC iPlayer.
Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
