Monday 27 / January / 2025
“Sport, as we shall see, is like a half-sucked sweet, not what it used to be,” is just one of many words of wisdom from Inspector Raymond Fowler, the lead character in The Thin Blue Line, one of the best police comedy shows till date.
Before there was Brooklyn Nine Nine and Castle, there was The Thin Blue Line, Britain’s version of the police sitcom, and like every other show produced on the little island just off the coast of Europe, it stands out by being unmistakably British, in that, it is intelligent, well-thought out and witty.
The Thin Blue Line was produced by the BBC, and the police comedy sitcom is available to watch and download for viewers across the globe.
Set in the fictional English town of Gasforth, which – based on the uniforms and insignia – is located in Yorkshire, the sitcom deals with the everyday nuances of policing, and doesn’t avoid speaking about social attitudes in the mid-90s, when the show first aired.
Rowan Atkinson, the comedic genius behind Mr Bean, Johnny English and Blackadder, plays Inspector Raymond Fowler, an old-fashioned policeman, who according to his long-term girlfriend, Patricia Dawkins, was “born middle-aged”. Some may consider him to be boring – his idea of an exciting night is a chapter of King Solomon’s Mines and a chocolate hobnob, his most stirring song is Ging Gang Goolie, and he can’t understand why almond Mars bars came in when the original was nice enough – but Fowler is an honourable man who would rather uphold the spirit of the law than the letter.
Much of the comedy stems from his inability to understand modern trends, leading to much sniggering from the sharp and smart Maggie Habib, played by Mina Anwar (Dr Sandra Malik in The Bill and Gita Chandra from The Sarah Jane Adventures), who is easily the sharpest tool in Fowler’s policing toolbox.
The bluntest among them would have to be Kevin Goody (James Dreyfus, who plays The Master from Doctor Who and Reverend Roger in Mount Pleasant), who has very little idea of what being a police officer actually entails, and signed up because he thought he looked good in a uniform.
His gormless, witless, horribly naïve actions “Do you think they know they’re supposed to get the round leather thing into the big square net-y thing?” is one of his particularly inane comments, in this case, delivered at a football game he’s policing).
Goody has a crush on Habib, whom he is always trying to impress, and she rejects his advances by threatening to call his mum, who will come down to the station “and do her raving na-na”.
While Goody may have no idea of what it’s like to be a copper, Constable Gladstone does. The Trinidadian-born officer is a veteran of the force, and is enjoying a quiet beat in Gasforth as he moves closer to retirement.
That experience doesn’t stop his inane prattle, though, having claimed to have once been a boy soprano for Radio Trinidad, in addition to many other irrelevant stories.
These are not the only things Fowler has to put up with: Sgt Patricia Dawkins (Serena Evans) does love him dearly, but is so inept a cook that she once made instant gravy instead of instant coffee, as well as Detective Inspector Derek Grim (David Haig), the buffoonish, rather daft head of Gasforth Police Station’s CID.
Desperate for a promotion, and displaying an inability to grasp English phrases (local delinquents nick the cars and flog them on to Mr Big. He’s out there, somewhere. A fat cat, spinning his web with his tentacles in every pie).
Grim’s idiotic antics have often gotten the police into trouble, only for Fowler to pull him out of the fire.
A show that showcases the best of British comedy, The Thin Blue Line is a show that warms the heart, tickles the ribs, and lets the laughs out time and time again. –
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The Short and Skinny
Name: The Thin Blue Line
Genre: Comedy
Produced by: Tiger Aspect Films
Produced for: BBC
Number of episodes: 14 (across two seasons)
What’s it about: Rowan Atkinson is Inspector Raymond Fowler in The Thin Blue Line, Britain’s hilarious take on procedural cop shows that is simply a must-watch
Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Serena Evans, Mark Addy, Lucy Robinson, Joy Brook, Kevin Allen, Rudolph Walker, Mina Anwar, James Dreyfus, Alexander Armstrong, Archie Panjabi, Ben Elton
Where to watch: Amazon, various streaming sites.
IMDB Rating: 7.5/10
