Mornin' Sarge

My comment on this televised situation comedy which I recall fondly is inevitably a bit vague being a one-off series of so few episodes. I was even surprised I could remember the title even at all. I racked my brain today as I watched a poor comic effort IMHO today on BBC 2 featuring 2 gormless WPCs and I thought there had been at least one funny programme about the Police that I recalled and I did not mean that one with Rowan Atkinson that did several series strangely IMO. This was about a group of characters at a London nick and included a vacant laid back blonde WPC and a very non-Dixon-like male Sergeant, the eponymous Sarge. A favourite actor also appeared in this show which aired on the BBC, I do not know his name but he has only one eye. Does anyone out there have recollections at all of this one and might care to comment please? Frank

Yes, I remember it well...in fact a few lines have found their way into the parlance between my brother any myself. It's pointless repeating them as they lose a lot in translation.

The series was simply very silly and very funny. It probably failed to get a second series due to the lack of a "name" actor leading the series, and the lack of any particularly sympathetic characters

Paul Brooke played Sarge, who was just a bit dense. Tony Haase played the Inspector. Well meaning, bumbling. A bit dense. Pete McCarthy played the keen-as-mustard young Constable, who was also a bit dense. Robin Driscoll played the cynical, corrupt detective, who just happened (you guessed it) to be a bit dense.

Very fondly remembered, here, at least!

Stephen

The nearest that the Cliff Hanger Theatre company, of Pete McCarthy, Robin Driscoll, Rebecca Stevens and Tony Haase got to mainstream success, following their cult hit It Came From Somewhere Else on Channel 4. Surreal, and almost deliberately unprofessional in production, script and acting, Mornin' Sarge added grumpy Paul Brooke to the company as the eponymous Sergeant in a London police station. The incompetent coppers limped through cases and problems, and struck the funny bone often enough to be fondly remembered. However, it was probably too lower case to catch on, and it never made a second series, nor even a DVD release. Far funnier and less formulaic than the Thin Blue Line, which mines the same seam. Well worth watching if you can catch it.

Me and my dad remember this show fondly we wondered if it had been issued on DVD, which it does not seem to have been.

I remember it being situated mainly in the police station not un-like Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson's Thin Blue line, Although Mornin Sarge preceded it by several years.

I Re-call Catch-phrases such as "tea flavoured tea" referring to the terrible drinks dispensing machine and "opperation football match" referring to the inept crowd policing at ... well... a football match, And of coarse "Mornin' Sarge." Remember it having the look of something like Drop the dead Donkey, Also the fat coppers on BBC2'S late 90's sketch show the Fast Show, seem to be some kind of distant un-official spin off. V similar. We both remember the original mornin' sarge series being on ITV not BBC which would explain the absence of a DVD release.