The Security Men

Since the all-conquering success of The Royle Family, Caroline Aherne has been almost invisible, the great disappearing woman of British comedy. Security Men is a one-off collaboration with Jeff Pope, who also co-wrote her last project, 2009's The Fattest Man in the World.

So expectations will be high for this, a boysy, old-fashioned comedy about work-shy nightwatchmen at a shopping centre, where an attempt to catch a late-night boxing match in the centre's electrical shop backfires horribly. The star is Peter Wight as Kenneth, the mall's jobsworth head of security, obsessed with detail and routine, while his colleagues (played by Dean Andrews, Brendan O'Carroll and - gulp - Bobby Ball) mock him behind his back.

Pitched into the comedic no-man's land that separates the kid-friendly spills of Night at the Museum from the fogey-ish, knowing humour of Phoenix Nights, Caroline Aherne and Jeff Pope's one-off security guard sitcom is an absolute shambles from start to finish.

Bobby Ball and Brendan 'Mrs Brown's Boys' O'Carroll cast their star-wattage over a tale of four slack-arsed shopping-centre security bumblers who, after getting caught napping on the job, decide to rewind the CCTV tapes and recreate a daring jewel theft to make themselves look like have-a-go heroes. If the plot is rickety, the dialogue should rightly be condemned. The rootsy, conversationalist northern humour that made Aherne's The Royle Family so bizarrely sublime has entirely deserted her here. In its place are a barrage of unwarranted F-bombs and endless, charmless references to the range and variety of Ball's wife's vaginal piercings.

The odd moment of seemingly unintentional Lynch-ian weirdness occasionally snags your attention - such as the foursome watching an Amir Khan fight on the TV while the soundtrack swells to the strains of Strangers in the Night and Ball moonwalks across the floor of Dixons - but otherwise, it's a lazy, messy hour of Chuckle Brother pratfalling and needless swears.

This one-off comedy written by Caroline Aherne and Jeff Pope (who also wrote The Fattest Man In Britain together) was filmed way back in 2011. But, although anything that bears Aherne's name is usually worth seeking out, this isn't going to set the world alight.

In fact, one of the main reasons for tuning in is to see Brendan O'Carroll in uniform instead of the Mrs Brown drag that has made him a superstar.

The show also stars Peter Wight, Dean Andrews and Bobby Ball as his fellow security guards in a Salford shopping mall.

Gentle, old-fashioned and predictable, Take Me Out presenter Paddy McGuinness also pops up as a copper after the slack security men have to cope with an actual robbery.

Royle Family creator Caroline Aherne teams up with Mrs Biggs writer Jeff Pope for this very entertaining comedy about security guards working the night shift in a shut-up shopping centre. Astute casting puts Mrs Brown's Boys star Brendan O'Carroll alongside Bobby Ball, Dean Andrews and Peter Wight as the brainless foursome whose work-shy ways get them into serious bother. It is decidedly crude in parts but there are small moments of brilliance too, thanks to the writing and rare cast chemistry. Supposedly a one-off, it's easy to see this returning as a regular sitcom.

The Security Men is not a revival, being a new one-off comedy written by Caroline Aherne and Jeff Pope (who together wrote The Fattest Man In Britain). But it does star Bobby Ball - of Cannon & fame - continuing his unlikely career renaissance after turns in Mount Pleasant, Last Of The Summer Wine and Not Going Out. And the thing is, Bobby Ball is still basically doing the same act as he did with Tommy Cannon every Saturday on ITV in the 80s. OK, not the bit where he pinged his braces and yelled, "Rock on Tommy!" but the naughty boy stuff is basically unchanged. He even, alarmingly, does the moonwalk at one point.

Here he plays one of four security men who are nominally guarding a shopping centre which - further compounding the sense of déjà vu - features a Wimpy. Their nights are filled with banter and bets, chiefly on how many cones the jobsworth boss will put out to guard a small liquid spillage on the floor. One night they turn off the alarms and sneak out while he's on his break, so they can watch a boxing match. Unfortunately, when the alarms go back on, they realise they've missed a robbery (not of the Wimpy, but a jewellers). They're in trouble. "And where," cries Ball's character Duckers, "are we going to find another job that's mostly sleeping?"

Amiable, harmless antics ensue as the team try to cover up their mistake. There's nothing here that would frighten your great-grandma - not even the running joke about Duckers' wife posing for nude pictures ("it's not often you see a 60-year-old woman with piercings"). It also stars Brendan O'Carroll - better known in female garb as Mrs Brown, from the critic-defyingly-successful sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys, itself an unashamed throwback to the age before alternative comedy. Don't worry about Tommy Cannon not being here though: he and Ball are still mates and tour churches with a religious show. Really.

Bobby Ball interview

Comic Bobby Ball has branched out into acting after a stage partnership lasting more than 50 years with Tommy Cannon. He's a showbiz legend and is having too much fun to retire. TV Choice caught up with him...