Campaigners have admitted that, in retrospect, they should not have invited comedy voicover actor Dave Lamb to supply a series of camp and sarcastic interjections during Dr Martin Luther King's recent address to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Many fear that the cause of civil rights in the US may have been ruined.
'Dr King can be a bit portentous at times and 17 minutes is a long time for 20,000 people to have to sit and listen to a political speech,' said leading campaigner Reverend C.L. Franklin from Tallahassee, Florida. 'We all love Mr Lamb's comic put-downs on Come Dine With Me, but sadly it just didn't work out this time.'
After a slow start, King became more animated, declaiming 'I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood', at which point Lamb interrupted with 'Mmmm, but they're not going to want to eat overcooked boeuf bourgignon together, are they?'.
Dr King then continued 'I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character', only for Lamb to say 'But what about the colour of your potatoes dauphinoise, which you've burnt to a cinder, Martin?'.
Every time Dr King tried to resume, Lamb butted in with 'Dreamy Martin's off again...' and the meeting broke up in chaos shortly afterwards. Lamb has not been sighted since the march, where Civil Rights groups and segregationists fought each other for the right to lynch him.
'We really should have learned from that time they used Marcus Bentley from Big Brother to do the commentary for President Kennedy's visit to Dallas,' conceded Franklin. 'It was just excruciating: '12.30 p.m. John and Jackie are just cooming under inter Dealey Plazuh in theyer muuurtercade. Lee is hiding in the boook depositurry, oor is he? Aal the other hoosemates are gathered on the grassy knurrrrll...'