Funny, charming, and occasionally crude enough to make your mum blush, Sky1’s Trollied is a little bit like your favourite uncle. Especially if your favourite uncle works in a supermarket in the north-west of England.
Blatantly taking the mickey out of certain supermarkets with its title sequence, this is a show that knows how to exploit humour from its territory.
Set in fictional supermarket Valco, it’s a keenly-observed comedy that speaks to people on both sides of the till; managing a fairly gentle and genuinely sharp wit that’s occasionally punctuated by moments of pure crudity.
Some will be put off by the mix and may find the language jars with the otherwise familial setting, but others will love it. There’s no denying, however, that in its first series Trollied is still figuring out how much it can and can’t get away with, and it’s in its more observant, less rude moments, that the show displays its full potential.
Ab Fab’s Jane Horrocks – no stranger to supermarket ads herself – excels as the ladder-climbing deputy manager Julie, surrounded by a team of staff who, though odder than a bargain bin of unlabelled soup tins, are written with real love.
It’s a credit to the writers that the characters, including dotty OAP Margaret (Rita May), head butcher Andy (Mark Addy) and manager Gavin (Being Human‘s brilliant ex-vampire Jason Watkins) are people you find amusing but at the same time wouldn’t be surprised to see on your weekly trawl round the aisles. Trollied‘s knack for characterisation is where its real draw lies.
There’s even space for a ‘Will they? Won’t they?’ romance between butcher Kieran and checkout girl Katie that’ll put you in mind of The Office‘s Dawn and Tim dynamic. In many ways, Trollied does for supermarkets what Slough’s Wernham Hogg Paper Co. did for desk-workers, albeit in a more sitcom style, which isn’t surprising as the show’s creator is The Office‘s own Ash Atalla.
The good news is Sky1 have recommisioned Trollied for a whopping 27 episodes, so if you missed it the first time, now’s your chance to catch all eight episodes of Series 1 on DVD.
Extras: There’s lots of good stuff here, including outtakes, trailers and cast video diaries, accompanied by some interesting behind the scenes features. Designing the Set shows the amount of work that went into the creation of the genuinely impressive supermarket set, while Meet the Team is an examination of each character and proves to be quite interesting. The Why I Hate Shopping featurette is basically every cliché we feel about shopping and is the one extra you may find yourself fast-forwarding through.
Released on DVD on Monday 17th October 2011 by Fremantle Home Entertainment.
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