Midlands comedian Lenny Henry has accused the TV industry of racism.

In a speech to the Royal Television Society (RTS) this week, he said little had changed since the era of Alf Garnet and argued affirmative action was needed to ensure more black faces both on screen and behind the camera.

Henry, who was raised in Dudley, said: "When I first started watching TV, there were no black people on it at all.

"The only black people constantly on telly were the Black and White Minstrels. And they were white. White blokes with black shoe polish on their faces-and big white lips. As far as comedy is concerned in this country, ethnic minorities are pitifully under-served."

Henry, whose wife Dawn French is currently appearing in BBC One's Lark Rise To Candleford, accused drama bosses of leaving out black and Asian faces - especially in period dramas.

He said: "You can't move for bonnets and crinolines on the telly and the people wearing them are all white. By the time Queen Victoria was on the throne, this country had a sizeable black population. So where are they when I turn on the telly?

"There is still so much work to do. When you can cast a Somalian girl in your piece simply because she's the best actress or when you can cast an Asian girl, and she is not playing the victim of an arranged marriage, or cast a bloke with dreadlocks not playing a drug dealer, then we will have something to work on."

Recalling the days of Till Death Us Do Part and Love Thy Neighbour, Henry told the audience: "TV producers of the 1960s and 1970s missed a great opportunity. Rather than reflect the reality of multi-ethnic Britain they chose a more xenophobic route, emphasising points of difference instead of similarities.

"If they had been more truthful in their observations, who's to say we couldn't have encouraged more young black kids at school or prevented the Brixton riots even?"

Till Death Us Do Part backfired horribly, he added, with Alf Garnett being "adopted as a hero by the very people he was satirising".

The writers tried to ensure that in each storyline, Garnett came off the worst, but Henry argued ethnic minorities were in fact the ones who suffered after the programme sparked racism and he was often called a "Paki" in the playground.

He said: "When I went to school the next morning, it was always me who came off worst. I tried to explain that I was not in fact from Pakistan.

"Context is everything. Alf Garnett was a ludicrous character, and in the right context pretty funny, but put him against the background of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech - is he so funny then?"

He called for affirmative action in the industry, adding: "And I am not talking about cleaners, security guys ... I am talking about decision-makers."

Henry himself appeared in a touring production of The Black And White Minstrel Show in the 1970s.

"I look at those photos now and I want to shoot everyone involved - including myself," he said.