A Touch of Cloth

Charlie Brooker basically doing for dour British police procedural what Airplane did for hysterical disaster movies. In fact this is so closely modeled on the Zucker spoof principals means that in some ways this is more of a tribute to them than it is to the UK crime shows. It's so niche a tonal combination that it alienated many at the time and it has been consigned to the cult bin. Good. I live in there.

This takes the form of three "series" composed of a single plot each - much like the ITV Britcop dramas it lampoons - John Hannah and the great Suranne Jones are magnificent as the "straight-faced" leads although Rhind-Tutt's camply pompous Tom Boss never quite works. The wider cast is a minor who's who of British character actors like Brian Cox, Stephen Dillane and Adrian Dunbar and in the last series you even get a pre-Hollywood Karen Gillan which feels genuinely insane. The first and second are notably stronger than the third but I'm secretly quite glad it didn't get the twelve episodes it was initially mooted to have (!)

The style is a heady cocktail of overwhelmingly relentless sight-gags, puns, format parodies, background jokes, wrong-footers, double entendres - you name it. It's a breathless whirligig of humour - not all of it lands, some of it is dated already, or childishly scatological, or incredibly clever, or baldly hilarious, or absolutely brilliant. It rewards repeated viewings, it's tremendously fun and it's almost exactly my sort of thing so fair play to it for that and it's the sort of thing I'm nearly daily reminded how glad I am that it even got made in the first place.

A new and original comedy/crime spoof that had me in stitches from start to finish . I couldn't take my eyes off the screen because as well as verbal lines of comedy you also had the visual effects which included ' datdere yute club' as a black youngster had told officers , and once they got to the club ,thats exactly what it was called. Personally ,the best lines were too many to mention but the scene in the morgue where a body was missing a tongue and the attendant mentioned that it appeared cunnilingus had taken place , 'wheres(wears) the tongue ?' the officer asked and the reply came back ,'yes it certainly does!' Genius writing mixed with great acting helped this become 1 of the funniest things i have seen for some time and i cant wait for the next episode :) If you enjoy a laugh that includes spoken and visual effects ,this is for you

When you think of something different how different do you want it. The usual expectations fall short every time things should be predictable and a new gag is ready. At times not so easy to understand but just review the scene. Nothing is sacred for the writers of the show, anything is worth a laugh. I laughed my head off when the double in the sex scene is not the usual beauty but a bad looking man that doubles a woman. The over the top effects remind us of how we take for granted the language and the standards in movies that are in fact more than real. The English are great at inventing satire from zero and making the obvious seem new. If you want to laugh at all levels of intelligence you can take a chance at ''A touch of cloth'' it will not let you down.

This is, quite simply, one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I was chuckling, giggling, and howling with laughter throughout most of the show. When I wasn't, I was most grateful; these small pauses allowed me to breath again.

There's an abundance of visual and auditory gags in every scene, each one as funny as the last. (Very) That, combined with unnecessary stunts and scenes that are funny without needing the above makes a show that most people will watch again and again.

Overall, unless you have had a sense-of-humour bypass, I suspect that you'll be in hysterics after watching this.

Very enjoyable send-up of your standard police procedural. Some of the clichés used like: "Come and have a look at this, Guv" and "I heard it from the boys down the station" are so familiar that I laughed out loud.

I notice a couple of reviewers had trouble seeing the funny side of this show and compared it with others like Naked Gun. I liked the Naked Gun movies, but they also had some flat moments, especially in the later entries. Not everything works, it's just what you get out of it overall, and I found a Touch of Cloth an amusing diversion.

I've always thought comedy is the most difficult genre. Not everyone can laugh at a pie in the face, nor can they laugh at a long self-deprecating monologue. It's what strikes your fancy that works and this one struck mine.