Reviewing television comedy is tricky. Rarely do the jokes work on the page, and when they do, who wants to spoil someone else’s punchlines? Sitcoms take time, too, to bed in: to reach that sweet spot where a writer can play on an audience’s carefully built expectations. The best and funniest TV comedy of the past four years, Tom Basden’s sharp and sweet Here We Go – it’s on iPlayer if you want to make a pretty miserable summer massively happier – began with a pilot that was only vaguely promising. But someone took a punt and commissioned a series, and thank God they did. I mean, the one where Paul (Jim Howick) takes a penknife to his inflatable swimming pool… Oh, Lord. (At this point, your correspondent breaks off to watch this for the 18th – and, er, 19th – time.)
Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, Piglets, a comedy set in a police training academy by the people who, two decades ago, brought us Green Wing (its writers are Robert Harley, Victoria Pile, Fay Rusling, Oriane Messina, Richard Preddy and James Henry). ITV obviously has high hopes for it – behold its prime Saturday-night slot nestling up to Alan Carr – and why not? The publicity campaign has gone superbly, the Police Federation having deemed its title “offensive” and “disgusting” (bit of an own goal there, I feel). More to the point, it stars Mark Heap (who was also in Green Wing) and Sarah Parish as the two superintendents who must parent our not-very-bright/utterly moronic little piglets as they learn about de-escalation, arm locks and what not to have in the canteen. Both are brilliant comic actors, especially Heap, the mere sight of whose face makes me laugh. Only bees (and Tom Basden) are better at bumbling than him.
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