Anyone who writes a comedy set in a police academy is on a hiding to nothing. You may as well write an adventure about an archaeologist on the hunt for the Ark of the Covenant, or a horror about a motel owner who has a very weird relationship with his mother. Forty years on, Police Academy remains a comic masterpiece. Piglets (ITV1) will not achieve the same status – although it has a pedigree, being made by the team behind Green Wing (to which is bears a strong resemblance) and Smack the Pony.
It also doesn’t have the charm of Four Weddings and a Funeral, although it has nicked the idea of opening with an expletive. Then, it was Hugh Grant waking up and spluttering: “F--k!” Here, the first words in the script are spoken by someone in a car saying: “Oh my s---ting s--t,” as they’re being chased by police. One of the passengers is deposited outside the Norbourne Police Training Academy. Luckily for the force, he’s a simpleton, complete with bowl haircut, and not a hardened criminal like the rest of his family.
The other trainees include a geek, an aspiring actor (“I’ve acted in auditions, castings, stuff like that”) and a dippy blonde who has signed up because her ex-boyfriend is one of the trainers. Sarah Parish, usually seen in glamorous roles, is barely recognisable as Julie Spry, a no-nonsense superintendent with short grey hair and an oddly red face (although Cressida Dick may find her oddly familiar). Parish sums up her job as “turning useless streaks of p--s into police officers, using brute force and shouting”.
The show has its amusing moments, particularly the scenes between the trainer (Ukweli Roach) and his ex (Callie Cooke), but overall it is pretty weak stuff. Too often it mistakes crudeness for humour. It’s a question of personal taste, but I much preferred the silly and less X-rated gags, as when a boss says: “You don’t want to get on the wrong side of me – because I’m partially deaf in one ear.”
The Police Federation of England and Wales has criticised ITV over the name of the series, saying that the reference to officers as pigs is “highly offensive” and “inflammatory against a landscape of rising threats and violence against officers”. The complaint is valid but this definitely isn’t a show making political statements.
Funny sitcoms are a rarity these days. Perhaps they have been for decades – was The Thin Blue Line funny? Piglets is just the latest lacklustre offering. The writers haven’t picked the wrong subject here – the last comedy to make me laugh out loud was the BBC’s Black Ops, about the misadventures of two Met community support officers – but they needed better jokes.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
