The Green Book (BBC)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "The Green Book" BBC – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The BBC Variety Programmes Policy Guide For Writers and Producers, commonly referred to as The Green Book, is a booklet of guidelines issued by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1949 to the producers^[1] and writers of its comedy programmes. It detailed what was then permissible as comedy material but its bureaucratic tone and outlandish strictures caused great amusement in the comedy world at the time. Most of its content is now completely out of date. It was a confidential document and was kept under lock and key. The executive responsible for its release was the then Head of Variety, Michael Standing, although it contained a large amount of material which had been previously issued in the preceding years in memo form.

The full text was first published with the BBC's permission in the book Laughter in the Air by Barry Took in 1976.^[2] It has since been sold by the BBC itself.