The popular sitcom returns this week.

By David Craig

Published: Thursday, 23 March 2023 at 12:00 am


Greg Davies has offered a glimpse at the chaos in store for his character in The Cleaner season 2, which comes to BBC One and BBC iPlayer this weekend.

The series stars Davies as Paul ‘Wicky’ Wickstead, a crime scene cleaner who encounters all manner of outlandish individuals as part of his day job and is often drawn into their lives in unexpected ways.

The anthological series has no trouble attracting big name guest stars – much to Davies’s own surprise – with Zoë Wanamaker (Shadow and Bone) and Harriet Walter (Succession) among those signed up for the fun this time around.

Characters in season 2 will range between friend and foe to Wicky, but all will challenge him in some way as Davies explained in an interview released to press.

He began: “I think we push Wicky further and further out of his comfort zone. Indeed, he’s often in peril and for a man who just wants a quiet pint we never allow him the luxury of stagnation.”

The actor and comedian – who also writes The Cleaner – went on to detail some of the antics featured in the second outing.

“I enjoyed: making Asim Chaudhry wear a greasy wig and chase me with a gun, having a fight with John Macmillan’s clown, having Simon Callow quote poetry at me, being pinned to the floor by a giant man whilst a chain smoking Dame [Harriet Walter] watched on,” he continued, “talking to Alex Lawther via a fox, [and] my friend Roisin [Conaty] attempting to murder me whilst having my faith challenged by Mark Lewis Jones.”

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At an event celebrating the launch of The Cleaner season 2, Davies spoke highly of his various co-stars in the sitcom but expressed amazement that any of them agreed to appear in the show.

“It’s ridiculous because they’re what I call proper actors. They’re trained and everything. Yeah, it’s amazing… We’ve ended up with people I never dreamt of.

“It’s surreal seeing someone like Simon Callow delivering, as you’ll see in that episode, preposterous lines that are beneath him.”