Piglets is ITV’s newest police trainee sitcom
Saturday: Piglets (ITV1, 9.30pm)
However, comedy cop shows are a new territory for her. That’s why she was so keen to sign up for the sitcom Piglets, which is set in a police training college, even though she already had another, more serious project ready to go.
Sarah says: “I read the scripts and they were just so funny and silly, the show was exactly my sense of humour. It had that absurd, Airplane-style humour and I loved it.
“I had already committed to a police drama and had a bit of a wobble about the scheduling, because I knew I’d have to squeeze in Piglets and then go straight onto the police drama. But in the end I loved Piglets so much I thought it would be silly not to do it if we could make the timings work.”
She adds: “It’s just so funny, and I’ve never really done anything like this before, with this great absurd humour and this kind of character. I really wanted to have a go at playing Superintendent Julie Spry because she’s so “out there”.
As anyone who watched last week’s opening episode will now, it’s not just the tone of the comedy that’s new for Sarah – she’s also got a radically different look, especially for viewers who are used to seeing her in more glamorous in shows like Cutting It.
Sarah says of her grey-haired character: “I definitely knew as soon as I read the script that Julie would look a certain way! I’d already worked with the make-up artist, Jody Williams on Atlantis, which was a very different look. When we met up for Piglets we tried on lots of wigs, and as soon as I put Julie’s on I knew that was the one, it was exactly how I saw her in my head. Then Jody suggested fake teeth, so we went the whole hog.”
She adds: “I didn’t think Julie should wear any make-up, but we decided that she loves hiking in her spare time and she wouldn’t bother wearing any SPF, so Jody was brilliant at adding loads of broken veins and skin damage to my face. It was really great fun to create this look.”
The fun didn’t stop there, as the actors were also given the opportunity to improvise.
Sarah says: “I would sometimes be able to bring something good, but [co-star] Mark Heap is a genius at that kind of thing, you could leave the camera running all day and he just gets funnier and funnier.
“It was really great to have that freedom to experiment. Some of it will work, some of it won’t. But the joy is having that time to try things.”
This week, it’s the characters who need to think on their feet as the students are tested on their ability to defuse difficult situations to prevent an escalation.
Meanwhile, a member of staff is unexpectedly sacked.