Alfie Moore: It's A Fair Cop

One of the biggest decisions an up-and-coming stand-up comedian can make is to give up the day job and concentrate on performing. It means farewell to the career as a teacher (Greg Davies), doctor (Harry Hill) or sales rep (John Bishop) and suggests a belief that a job telling jokes is going to pay the mortgage instead.

Alfie Moore spent 18 years on the Humberside police force before he turned to stand-up comedy, but if It's a Fair Cop - his first series for BBC Radio 4 - is anything to go by, it was definitely the right move.

The formula for the show is that Moore swears his audience in as police officers for one night, and takes them through a real-life scenario to see what kind of decisions they would make in the same circumstances. Theft was the theme of the first instalment, with the focus on 80-year-old Maureen and a stolen tin of salmon.

This approach was clever because the laughs, and there were plenty of them, came from two different directions. For a start, there was Moore's great patter, in which he managed to mock his previous profession at the same time as demonstrating a deep respect for it. Plus his rapport with the audience/temporary officers ("Don't do the crime if you can't do the time," said one less than sympathetic volunteer) was equally entertaining.