If Romesh Ranganathan is ever inclined to look over his shoulder and worry about his position as Britain’s most ubiquitous TV comedian, he might see the 6ft 8in figure of Greg Davies looming on the horizon. Davies is currently not only hosting the umpteenth series of Taskmaster and soon to chair a new run of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, he is also now back on BBC One with his sitcom The Cleaner.
This is the third time around for Davies as crime-scene cleaner Paul “Wicky” Wickstead, the “technician” called upon to mop up after bloody crimes or untimely deaths. Since its first episode in 2021, the variety of these gory aftermaths has given Davies (who writes the show) the opportunity to create a new self-contained scenario each episode – and a chance to build an impressive guest cast list.
In the series three opener, the guests were Ben Willbond from Ghosts and the ever-busy Rosie Cavaliero (currently to be seen in Netflix’s Greek mythology mash-up Kaos).
Willbond played Justin, the owner of a huge mansion where a removal man had been crushed beneath a grand piano. Upon arrival at the bloody scene, Wicky mistook Justin for hired help and ranted about “a working man being called in by a rich man to clean up the blood of a working man”. Eventually he twigged that Justin was not only the owner of the swish mansion, but also an old school friend. And rather than being a brash “loadsamoney” type, Justin was modest and kind as he repeatedly pulled the rug from underneath Wicky’s assumptions.
In fact Wicky’s envy-tinged cynicism was challenged throughout a well-worked storyline that eventually involved a whole group of their old schoolfriends gathering at the mansion – including Cavaliero as Marnie, a cruise ship Pink impersonator. Her impromptu rendition of Pink’s “Try” reduced everyone but Wicky to tears. Wicky was also alone in not being delighted by Justin’s success, and his mounting incredulity at everyone’s generosity of spirit was the episode’s running gag. “She’s living the dream,” says Justin of Marnie. “Is she?” questions Wicky. “She’s a Pink impersonator on a boat.”
Just beneath the surface of the comedy lay a morality tale about the fickleness of memory and fortune. The old schoolmate who was remembered as the coolest of the gang and about whom the others joked that he would probably show up on horseback, arrived (okay, somewhat predictably) riding a mobility scooter. He had emphysema and an accompanying oxygen tank.
Wicky was meanwhile deflated by the gang recalling how they thought he would never go far in life. “I was always jealous of you,” Justin told Wicky sincerely. “You were always happy with the little things.” Ouch.
The Cleaner’s anthology format and twists in the tale (here involving a stolen David Bowie LP) are reminiscent of Inside No 9 (a likeness underlined by the presence of Steve Pemberton in a future episode). Inside No 9 may have been more furiously inventive, but I find The Cleaner much funnier. This is no small thanks to Davies’s trademark sarcasm (honed, I like to think, in his pre-comedy days as a schoolteacher) and amusing suffer-no-fools comic persona.
The first two series of The Cleaner were undeniably patchy, but having seen the opening three episodes of the third, it has finally found its stride. With larger casts (and therefore fewer two-handers), the stories can be more expansive, while the lightly applied backstory about Wicky’s relationship with police officer Ruth (Zita Sattar) gives the show a token sense of continuity.
But The Cleaner is essentially about throwing Wicky into a variety of bizarre situations and laughing as he struggles to deal with them. A bit like Taskmaster really.
‘The Cleaner’ continues next Friday at 9.30pm. All three series are streaming on BBC iPlayer
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