Channel 4’s diversity drive took an unexpected turn as comedian Maureen Younger said she was invited to a workshop aimed at Black female comics.

The Caucasian comedian referenced the invite during a performance at Soho House on Monday night.  

Speaking to the audience, the standup said: ‘This is true. Because my name appears a lot on Black comedy listings, Channel Four, in its wisdom, invited me to a comedy diversity workshop as one of Britain’s busiest Black female comics.’

‘I said, “Have you done your research?” They went, “We’ll provide lunch.”

‘I thought, you know what? A girl’s got to eat. It was actually a really nice lunch.’

The comedian and actor, who was placed third for British Comedian of the Year in 2023, added: ‘Despite being white and straight, I do a lot of gigs on the gay and Black comedy circuits.

Channel 4’s diversity drive took an unexpected turn as comedian Maureen Younger said she was invited to a workshop aimed at Black female comics

The white comedian referenced the invite during a performance at Soho House on Monday night 

‘In fact, I do so much of both that I’m in danger of becoming Britain’s leading Black lesbian comic. You’re looking at me now, aren’t you, thinking… “comic?” Thanks, guys.

‘But I once did a gig called Les Felicia comedy night, and on the poster, they wrote, “As an honorary lesbian, Maureen has performed at more gay events than many of the UK’s leading gay comedians today.” And that is ridiculous, guys.

‘That is what happens when you write your own quotes.’

Channel 4 faced similar ridicule when it wrongly captioned a video of Boris Johnson with subтιтles referring to the race of immigrants. 

In December 2019,the then Prime mInister made a speech in which he said new immigration controls would ensure ‘people of talent’ still come to Britain.

But in Channel 4’s subтιтles of the speech, the phrase was changed to become ‘people of colour’, with the video then being shared widely online by people insisting the wrongly-reported comments were racist.

The channel later apologised for the mistake, saying: ‘Boris Johnson says ‘people of talent’ not ‘people of colour’. Our earlier tweet was a mistake. We misheard and we apologise.’

Channel 4 was recently slammed for mistakenly captioning footage of Boris Johnson. This is a grab of the wrongly captioned version, which mistakenly reports him saying ‘people of colour’

Despite being incorrect, the wrongly-reported words were spread widely on X and were the top trending phrase that day

But senior Conservatives accused the channel of trying to smear the Prime Minister.

Party chairman James Cleverly tweeted: ‘Boris has used the phrase ‘people of talent’ many times during this election campaign in relation to our points based immigration policy.’

Mr Johnson’s actual words at an election campaign event in Derbyshire were: ‘We’ll be able to do all sorts of things differently and better including controlling our immigration system for the first time in decades and that would be a good thing.

‘I’m in favour of having people of talent come to this country but I think we should have it democratically controlled.’

The wrongly reported comments were seized upon by his opponents, who claimed what he said was racist.

Channel 4 has been approached for comment.