Uh-oh. Now we know why the UK has so many dark “comedies”:
by Simon Hattenstone
Paul Abbott is in danger of having created a new character every bit as monstrous as Shameless’s Frank Gallagher, and he is so excited that the words can’t tumble out fast enough. Detective inspector Vivienne Deering (played by Joanna Scanlan from The Thick of It) is not shy of squirting vaginal deodorant in public meetings, occasionally confuses it with her mouth spray, takes the longest (singing) pisses in TV history, will do anything to protect herself, is pretty good at looking after others too, and is not to be messed with. No Offenceis the first original UK TV series Abbott has written in more than a decade.
He has been working in television for 30 years, and in the 80s and 90s made his name writing for Coronation Street and Cracker, and co-creating the medical series Ward Four with Kay Mellor. But it was in the noughties that he established himself as one of the TV greats, with an astonishing run that included Linda Green, Clocking Off and most memorably State of Play and Shameless, two series that couldn’t have been more different.