A Touch Of Cloth

7 British comedies you've never seen but really should

Here are 7 shows from this odd little country that prove that we're more than a nation of pie-eating, French-hating pig farmers with pictures of the Queen in our toilets. Or loos, as we call them.

Greatest Underrated Comedy of the Previous Decade #1

Sometimes you feel a comedy series deserved more recognition, and in the last decade we had quite a few series that never quite reached their full potential, or, through no fault of their own went under the radar.

A Touch of Cloth dead, but Charlie Brooker wanted more

Charlie Brooker's blink-and-you-miss-it comedy A Touch of Cloth is unlikely to come back for a fourth series, according to lead star John Hannah.

Charlie Brooker's police drama spoof returned for a third double bill last week, with DI Jack Cloth (John Hannah) and Suranne Jones's DI Anne Oldman (pronounced "an old man", a joke that - honestly - only improves with repetition) investigating the death of Cloth's brother. To describe the comedy as hit and miss would be an understatement: Brooker unselfconsciously bombards the audience with material that veers from the tedious to the sublimely silly.

It's co-written by Charlie Brooker and Daniel Maier, whose writing credits include Harry Hill's TV Burp, and there's a lot of Burp in both the affectionate spoofing of British television conventions and the relentless onslaught of silliness. The convoluted plots of police procedurals usually require some viewer concentration, but here it's the gags that have you reaching for rewind on the TiVo remote. There are so many of them - visual, verbal, saucy and slapstick - that to watch A Touch of Cloth is to be constantly plagued by the fear that you've missed something brilliant.

Casting John Hannah as DI Jack Frost and Suranne Jones as DC Anne Oldman (pronounced "an old man") is a particular joy, given both of them have often appeared in exactly the kind of series ridiculed here. It wouldn't be half as much fun to have a comedian deliver lines like, "You never get used to the way you get used to it and that takes some getting used to" and keep a straight face.

This season there's also new blood in the shape of Doctor Who's Karen Gillan as... er... Kerry Newblood. It's an opportunity to send up all those clichés pertaining to rookies, of which there are plenty. Not that there's any danger of the writers running out of material. As long as TV's obsession with grisly murders and maverick cops continues, there'll always be a case for DCI Cloth to solve.

Review: A Touch of Cloth - Too Cloth for Comfort

Too Cloth for Comfort was funnier than the previous two specials, although the storyline was probably the least interesting and the plotting slightly rougher.

Radio Times review

A third outing for Charlie Brooker's Naked Gun-style cop spoof, although the comparison's becoming fainter and fainter. This is the strongest instalment yet, because the show's built up its own armoury of bad puns, ridiculous direction and smashed fourth walls. It no longer needs to bother about specifically spoofing individual crime dramas, either.

The story, as if that's important, concerns a serial killer who seems to be linked to a sinister therapy spa. Adrian Dunbar plays its powerful owner, doing a particularly good maniacal laugh that goes on for much too long. Karen Gillan is a bit underused as the squad's naive new flibbertigibbet, but that's fine because regular stars John Hannah and Suranne Jones are better than ever at straight-faced, dignity-shredding baloney. Keep looking out for the signs on the wall behind them.

Prepare for more puerile police procedural parody, as this hilarious spoof detective drama returns to our screens.

Shamelessly sending up crime investigation shows such as Luther, Cracker and A Touch Of Frost, odd couple cops DCI Jack Cloth (John Hannah) and DI Anne Oldman (Suranne Jones) once again take on another gruesome case - this time the murder of Cloth's estranged brother. But, as ever, the plot is secondary to all manner of tongue-in-cheek gags and side-splitting visual jokes.

"The humour in this is essentially just silliness," laughs Suranne, 35. "It's just perfect fodder for mickey taking. I'm still doing Scott & Bailey, so I've now got a 'cliché monitor' in my head. Whenever I spot something, it makes me chuckle in honour of A Touch Of Cloth."

Joining the cast is former Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan. Playing rookie recruit Kerry Newblood, she finds herself the victim of an ambush by a gorilla!

As a veteran of cop shows such as Rebus, John Hannah feels the genre is ripe for ridicule. "Anyone who watches TV will get the jokes in A Touch Of Cloth," claims John, 52. "I'm so sick of police shows where you know exactly what it's going to be like."

Hilarious signs in A Touch Of Cloth

Hilarious signs and Karen Gillan's patted bottom: did you spot all these gags from A Touch of Cloth?

A Touch Of Cloth III preview

If you watched the first and second instalments of Charlie Brooker's A Touch of Cloth then you'll know just how brilliant it is, and the third instalment, A Touch Of Cloth III: Too Cloth For Comfort is just as brilliant, and just as funny, if not funnier.