Between the institutional racism, the institutional misogyny and the institutional homophobia, the Metropolitan police isn’t exactly steeped in hilarity. Can a new sitcom really mine some primetime BBC One belly laughs from the beleaguered institution?
It’s a big ask, but the answer – pretty miraculously – is yes. Black Ops follows two community support officers: the clever but unambitious Dom (Gbemisola Ikumelo) and the naive, uber-religious Kay (Hammed Animashaun). Their jobs are predictable, low-risk and questionnaire-centric – until they’re convinced to infiltrate a local gang as part of an “off the books” undercover operation. From there, Black Ops merges broad comedy with bent copper crime drama to hilarious and nail-biting effect. I won’t give away any of the myriad plot twists, but suffice to say there are some malevolent forces at play in the force itself. Or as Dom economically puts it: “This is some Line of Duty shit!”
Sometimes, high-concept, plot-heavy and especially crime-themed comedy can feel like a cop-out (sorry not sorry). Judging by the ratio of irresistibly gripping police procedurals to laugh-out-loud funny comedies – I’m going to make a conservative estimate of 300:1 – it’s far easier to stage hairy escapes and soft-launch dodgy characters than to deliver gag after well-landed gag. While the cop corruption storyline makes this a very bingeable series – the setup is brilliantly intriguing – Black Ops always feels impressively like out-and-out comedy.
That’s partly because it has a joke density that distinguishes it from the raft of laughter-lite dramedies that currently dominate the streamers. Mostly, however, it’s down to the show’s two stars. Ikumelo – who wrote the show alongside Famalam creator Akemnji Ndifornyen (who plays gang member Tevin) and seasoned sitcom writing duo Lloyd Woolf and Joe Tucker (Witless, Click & Collect) – plays the chronically pissed-off Dom with a level of comic timing that makes every sentence a rewindable treat. Animashaun – who you can also see being hilarious in criminally underrated YouTube satire Pls Like – is a natural clown.
Many jokes stem from the failure of these decidedly non-“street” individuals (spoilt Dom lives at home with her paediatrician dad in a house with an aspirational kitchen, while ebulliently idiotic Kay runs a prayer group) to conduct non-farcical drug deals and play it cool in front of the gang they find themselves awkwardly embroiled in. It’s the sort of comedy that lives or dies by its delivery, and these two are pitch perfect. Some scenes – such as one where the clueless Kay pretends to know what dogging is – might sound hackneyed on paper, but his delivery is so fresh it feels like the first time anyone has made the joke.
The rest of the cast don’t let them down. Amid the starry names (Felicity Montagu, Joanna Scanlan, Rufus Jones, Zoë Wanamaker) are some standout performances. Character comedian Colin Hoult is exceptional as community support colleague Pricey, a man whose lame brand of arseholery is best encapsulated by his caff order: “Energy drink straight in the coffee. Gotta be done!” Kerry Howard appears for about three very memorable seconds as an incredibly smug police officer who thinks Dom and Kay have conned their way into their own workplace (because they are black, it is implied). Emma Sidi – also excellent in Pls Like – plays a park ranger who catches Dom and Kay doing something suspicious on Walthamstow Marshes. When she later identifies them to the police, her terrible attempts to be racially sensitive had me helpless with laughter.
As is probably now quite clear – and as its punning title suggests – Black Ops is full of jokes about race. Some play on the anxieties of white people: there’s a recurring joke that involves Dom calling Kay “a chocolate teapot” due to his uselessness. “In’t that racist?” says Pricey. “Errr, no,” replies a typically disgusted Dom. Others are at the expense of the protagonists themselves, including an exchange where Dom accuses a senior black officer of not dating black women. But the show also uses comedy to spotlight racism in a pointed way. Sometimes that’s in fairly on-the-nose style – the Met are portrayed as cartoonishly ignorant when it comes to race – but elsewhere the digs are more subtle. When Dom complains to Pricey about always being partnered with Kay because they are both black, he responds: “Woah, no comment!” A little reminder that when it comes to racism, most people just don’t want to know.
That said, there is nothing remotely self-serious about Black Ops. Its focus is on perfecting the art of the farce via the dream team of Ikumelo and Animashaun. The Met might be in a state – the country might be in a state – but if these two are the future of British comedy, we’re in very safe hands.
