“It’s not a documentary. It’s not a satire on the police.”
Police sitcom Piglets, which comes from the team behind Green Wing, is now available to stream in full on ITVX, but it hasn’t arrived without some controversy.
Ahead of its first episode airing, The Police Federation of England and Wales criticised the show’s title, which is a play on the derogatory term for police (pigs) calling it a “disgusting choice of language” and “highly offensive to police officers risking their lives”.
However, those behind the show have been clear in an interview with this week’s issue of Radio Times magazine that they weren’t trying to make a political statement with the title or the focus of the series.
Mark Heap said of the show: “It’s not a documentary. It’s not a satire on the police – it’s just a nice structure. It’s the ‘sit’ in which to put the ‘com’.”
Meanwhile, creator Victoria Pile said: “It’s a workplace with all the usual challenges and romances. Whether it’s a hospital, a police training college or a university, it’s still got the same human condition at its heart.
“Our little group wants to explore the real ways that people behave – and pull it out a little bit at the corners and go for the extreme.”
Read more:
- Unforgotten and EastEnders favourites join Murder, They Hope special
- Gavin & Stacey finale is written, James Corden says
The synopsis for Piglets says: “The government’s stated policy of recruiting 20,000 new police officers in double quick time has not come at the cost of lowering standards. Or has it?
“Piglets follows a newly recruited group of six very different would-be cops and the handful of key staff whose thankless task it is to knock them into some kind of shape.”
Piglets is available to stream in full now on ITVX.
Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.