Police Cops @ Pleasance Dome

Young cop vows to avenge dead brother, is forced to work with renegade cop, does great work with renegade cop, falls out with renegade cop, but is later reunited for one last adventure. If it sounds familiar, it’s meant to. A parody of every cop buddy-movie made in the 70s and 80s, Police Cops gets a lot of things right: from the frenetic overacting and the massively stereotypical baddie to the 'is this or isn't this' homoerotic relationship.

The three performers clearly revel in their era, as there are a good few extracurricular references: Footloose, Indiana Jones, Stephen King. The young cop’s voice is also a dead ringer for the kid in Gentle Ben, though whether that’s on purpose or not remains to be seen.

So far, so positive. However... the issue lies in the fact it feels a bit like just the one (very long and rather old) joke. The montages are awfully frequent, and though amusing individually, become wearing. It’s well pastiched, and the performers are massively competent and enthusiastic, but because you know the story as soon as it starts, you need something extra to engage with it. The funniest bits come when the renegade cop starts ad-libbing absolute nonsense; it might be their fervent attention to form that stops Police Cops being as good as it could be. 

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Police Cops, Pleasance Dome (Queen Dome), 3-28 Aug (not 17 & 24), 9.45pm, £6-12