NI comedy Soft Border Patrol is back with Gerry Kelly and Jackie Fullerton on board

It is the third series of the improvised comedy which centres on teams trying to help people navigate a fictional post-Brexit soft border smoothly and swiftly, but not always successfully.

The return to filming saw the cast and crew come to terms with the fact actress Julie Maxwell, who passed away after collapsing on a night out in Belfast last summer, would not be involved.

Actress Diona Doherty, who has been in all three series, said: “We all felt such a gap this year, coming back without Julie. Especially Caroline Curran who is her best friend in real life and who played her on-screen partner. They are like two sisters.

“I think Caroline felt shooting the third series was almost therapeutic for her. She told me that our producer, our director, the whole cast and crew really filled that void for her and made her feel so loved and welcomed.

“Watching this series as cast members will be bittersweet, it’ll be a lovely tribute to Julie but also very sad without her.”

In episode one of the new series, broadcaster Gerry Kelly confronts Laurence Lyle, played by comedian Shane Todd, over a PR gaffe.

In episode two, which airs next Friday, Jackie Fullerton shares his years of experience with Soft Border Patrol officers.

Diona said: “It’s such a great concept that The Comedy Unit have developed relative to the times we’re living in.

“I don’t know what outcome we would have needed to have had politically for Soft Border Patrol to ever make sense but I don’t think it matters, we’re just having fun with it.

“It’s farcical and it’s silly but it’s also scarily to the bone sometimes of how our future could be, and some things that have actually happened have been parodied on the show without us even realising.

“People in Northern Ireland are at their best when they’re taking the mickey out of themselves and that is what this show does.

“Even with the Nadine Coyle clip last year, that was taking the mick out of her but in the kindest possible way. She was so up for it.”

Asked if it’s hard to keep a straight face when you don’t know what’s coming next, Diona said: “The stuff we do with Michael Stranney who plays Craig Carson, the leader of the Continuity Nine (who want to reunite the nine counties of Ulster), has us breaking down and laughing and having to start again. You would have a great blooper reel from the three series.”

Series three will extend to four episodes beginning on Friday night on BBC One Northern Ireland at 10.35pm.