Health and safety to be the subject of new sitcom
The broadcaster who did much to hinder the cause of sensible health and safety with its 2008 documentary on the profession, The Fun Police, has commissioned a sitcom pilot of the same name.
Channel 4, whose ‘Cutting Edge’ programme was generally felt by practitioners to make a mockery of health and safety, has announced the 30-minute pilot as part of its Comedy Showcase season. It will star comedian Vic Reeves and focus on “the trials and tribulations of a small-town health and safety team”.
The show is written by Matt Morgan, who was previously Russell Brand’s co-presenter on the latter’s infamous BBC Radio 2 show, and will also star New Zealand stand-up comedian Rhys Darby, who played band manager Murray Hewitt in the cult Kiwi comedy show, The Flight of the Conchords.
SHP is endeavouring to get more details on the style and tone of the programme from production company, Roughcut TV.
The Fun Police pilot will be recorded in front of a live audience at BBC Television Centre on Saturday, 28 May, from 6.30pm. To apply for free tickets, click here. It is due to be aired on Channel 4 in the autumn.
Health and safety to be the subject of new sitcom
The broadcaster who did much to hinder the cause of sensible health and safety with its 2008 documentary on the profession, The Fun Police, has commissioned a sitcom pilot of the same name.
Safety & Health Practitioner
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If they can make a sitcom on H&S then it shows how far we professionals have allowed H&S in the eyes of the public to become a laughing stock. Letting other non-experts or those who live in ivory towers to come out with the edits they have, has made Elf and Safety a source of silly sayings across the board.
Let everyone have a good laugh at the funny, then ensure the real message on real issues is also broadcasted maybe as a rider at the end of each show.
Someone famous said “there is no such thing as bad publicity” so I welcome this new show. Did “Drop the dead donkey” make journalism more difficult ? Did “Yes Minister” wipe out politicians ?
Us “professionals” may have to explain why what we recommend is not on a par with something from the “Fun Police” but that’ll increase understanding and awareness, and maybe prevent some bad decisions being implemented. It’s all good.
I’m looking forward to this – NOT!!
Being responsible for trying to inform a relatively unresponsive workforce how to keep themselves free from injury, I can’t wait for the new opportunities that they will have to further ridicule what I am trying to do.
I can see this is going to do our industry a power of good – of course if its on TV it must be true!
This is cheap television written by someone who doesn’t have the artistic talent to think of something original (a colleague of Russell Brand – nuff said!!). This is totally predictable – the health and safety team will come over as buffoons dealing with a load of trivia.
I may be wrong and if I am then I am a banana!
I agree with Geoff too, I used a small excerpt of the fawlty towers fire alarm episode to illustrate why we need to plan for emergencies and how wrong it can all go if we dont take it seriously. I also used a short clip from the only fools n horses “chandalier ” episode to illustrate why we need to do risk assessment. These training sessions received the most positive feedback of any we ever conducted, so rather than take offence, perhaps we should use the programme to our advantage
Hi all, dont forget this has happened through out TV history. Prime example is Fawlty towers -Zee Germans episode which depicits the hotels fire alarm test arrangements. Dont forget some bits can be useful as a light training aid. For example the episode mentioned above is a good example of showing the audience how different people can react when faced with a fire situation whilst inject humour.
I like Vic Reeves, i just hope this does not end up being a total mickey take of the profession on a grand scale – Clarkson’s sarcasm I do find amusing because he is openly ridiculous rather than dangerously negative, but this could end up being a completely different bag of conkers.
As the recording has passed, is there any feedback from the SHP team in the audience?
I agree with Geoff, there may be some useful training exaamples to come out of it just as there were from the channel 4 cutting edge programme. Its going to happen so we must make the best of it that we can.
I agree with Geoff, we may be able to turn it into a training opportunity, same as the cutting edge programme. Its going to happen so we must make the best of it.
Agree with Geoff and Andy – this will create many training opportunities and from everything I have seen in management who watch these programmes, it facilitates an open discussion and makes them more focussed about real risk not trivial risk. – indeed ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’ – Phineas T. Barnum 🙂
Just to let you know that some of the SHP editorial team will be in the audience at the recording of the show on Saturday, so watch this space for our report on how it went (we might even heckle – or wave copies of SHP around!)
Hi all,
The ed team did make it to the BBC for the Fun Police and the general feeling was ‘meh!’ It didn’t take the mick as much as it could have, and the main figure of fun was the council office manager, rather than the H&S people. If you ever watched The Brittas Empire, well – this guy is basically Mr Brittas! The H&S manager was a woman and she is certainly over-zealous but didn’t figure too prominently. Vic Reeves plays a road planner & appears for all of 2 minutes!