Greg James apologises after backlash to Roald Dahl disability blunder

Greg James has apologised after a promotional video for his and Chris Smith's new take on Roald Dahl's The Twits saw them refer to a character with a glass eye as "horrible" and "disgusting".

In the now-deleted video, James, Smith and illustrator Emily Jones spoke about how they were going to come up with characters for new book The Twits Next Door, which is based on Dahl’s 1980 novel. The Twits follows Mr. and Mrs Twit, Dahl's original story describes Mrs Twit as having a glass eye which she uses in a practical joke on her husband.

Read more: Roald Dahl rewritten by stars including Greg James, Adam Kay and Konnie Huq

Per a transcript of the original advert, James, Smith and Jones discuss the characters and say that they need to be "more revolting" and "really gross", adding that Mrs Twit needs to have a glass eye before they closed out the video with the statement: "What a disgusting pair of twits!"

But this comment was met with huge backlash on social media, prompting James to apologise. In a statement, the DJ took to Twitter to share: "Hello! Regarding our new Twits story announcement video from this morning: We are so sorry to have caused offence with the launch video. It was absolutely not our intention.

"And we apologise unreservedly. It’s now gone. We understand that words matter and we pride ourselves on championing and welcoming everyone into the magical world of children’s books. We would never dream of deliberately setting out to exclude anyone.

"With the glass eye comment, we were attempting to pay homage to one of the Twit’s most famous pranks involving a glass of beer in order to remind people of Dahl’s infamous terrible two. It’s in no way a suggestion that this forms any part of the plot of the new story nor was it our intention to suggest that it was in any way disgusting."

James added: "It’s unfortunate that the word disgusting appears to be a direct comment on that. That’s an error on our part. We are devastated that it’s come across like this but completely understand why there is anger. And we appreciate everyone rightly calling it out.

"We hear that fully, we’re so upset that we made a mistake but we’re still incredibly proud of this book and we’re excited to get out there and share it with young readers all over the world x"

The original video received a huge amount of criticism from social media users, including the Royal National Institute of Blind People who responded on X, formerly known as Twitter: "When there's positive representation of disabilities in children's books, children with disabilities feel seen and heard, and their friends and classmates treat everyone the same. There is nothing at all revolting about prosthetic eyes, we think they're brilliant.

"If anyone involved in this project would like to talk to us about encouraging acceptance and understanding of disabilities, both visible and invisible, especially children with visual impairments, our DMs are always open."

Other users also hit back at the promotional video, with one person writing: "Why would you want children to associate a glass eye, or any disability with being 'horrible'? What do you think children will learn from that? What do you think that will feel like to disabled children?"

Another person, who is blind, criticised the video by writing: "I'm a blind parent. How do I explain to my Little One that other people think Mummy is 'disgusting' because I have a visual impairment. How many children will now receive the message that blindness & eye prosthesis is a 'horrible' quality that makes someone a bad person?" The social media user went on to offer to be a sensitivity reader for the book.

One user said of the video: "This is a real mistake. I would take it down now. Having taught more than one child with a prosthetic eye - and with other eye conditions- I know that the very last thing they need is for a respected adult to be saying that their disability is 'disgusting'."

Another person wrote: "We’ve literally just had national news where disabled kids are being banned from school photos and you thought this was okay".

Watch: Decision to rewrite Roald Dahl's books met with widespread criticism