Sam Leifer and Victoria Pile’s ITV sitcom drops six rookies into the fictional police training college where Sarah Parish’s Superintendent Julie Spry and Mark Heap’s Bob Weekes preside over a syllabus of pratfalls and procedural chaos. From day one the cadets—Callie Cooke’s social-media addict Steph, Sam Pote’s wide-eyed Leggo, Halema Hussain’s quietly scheming Afia and the rest—are bounced between Ricky Champ’s bellowing Sergeant Black and Ukweli Roach’s laconic Gunn, their dignity left at the perimeter fence. The writers’ room, stocked with Green Wing veterans Victoria Pile, Robert Harley and Oriane Messina plus ITV’s new-scheme recruits, favours rapid-fire visual gags over plausibility; a firearms exam dissolves into a slapstick melee and a simple identity parade becomes an exercise in institutional panic. London locations double as the college, shot in a brisk January-February 2024 block that kept the energy just ahead of the script.
Controversy arrived before the cameras finished rolling when the Police Federation demanded the title be changed, arguing “piglets” mocks serving officers; ITV kept the name and leaned into the fuss. Reviews were split: The Guardian handed it three stars and wished for either sharper satire or a straighter sitcom, while the Evening Standard dismissed it as “primary-school toilet humour” and The Independent found the characters half-baked. Only The Times offered four stars, praising its “weird, rude” DNA. Yet 6.2 million streams on ITVX in the first month pushed ITV to renew the show within four months, shifting the second run to ITV2 in January 2026 and proving that, whatever the critics thought, the audience liked their recruits served silly.
Production Details
ITV1 / 2 Seasons / 12 Episodes / 2024 - Present
Created by: Sam Leifer
Showrunner(s): Sam Leifer, Robert Harley, Caroline Leddy
Writer(s): Oriane Messina, James Henry, Robert Harley
Producer(s): Victoria Pile
Cinematography: Rob Kitzmann
Music: Adem Ilhan
Main Cast
Sarah Parish as Superintendent Julie Spry
Mark Heap as Superintendent Bob Weekes
Rebecca Humphries as Melanie
Jamie Bisping as Paul
Ricky Champ as Sergeant Daz Black
Abdul Sessay as Dev
Callie Cooke as Stephanie Jackson
Ukweli Roach as Sergeant Mike Gunn
Sam Pote as Leggo
Halema Hussain as Afia
Madelyn Smedley as Dannii
Kerr Logan as Connor
