Police Cops in Space – Underbelly Festival Cavendish Square, London

Writers: Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe

Last year, the Police Cops comedy troupe presented their musical magnum opus, Police Cops: The Musical, at Southwark Playhouse with a song and dance-based pastiche of a 1980s buddy cop TV series. But although that show included an expanded cast, Police Cops is at heart three men (Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe) being silly together on stage.

Police Cops in Space, a revival of a show first seen in 2017, takes the law enforcement parody genre into science fiction, plucking tropes from Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Terminator and more. This iteration of the troupe’s comedic story – which always revolves around one character wanting to be The Best Damned Police Cop Ever – sees Parkinson’s Sammy, an interstellar cop forever in the shadow of his late father who everybody galaxy-wide believes was, in fact, the Best Damned… well, you get the idea.

Sammy is pursued by an evil robot (Roe) – you can tell he’s evil because he has an Australian accent, and cannot laugh – who killed his father and is on a mission to exterminate all Police Cops because of a mystical prophecy. Together, Sammy and space pilot Ranger (Hunt) flee, before facing up to the bad guy in a phaser shootout.

It’s all ridiculously lo-fi – hyperspace travel consists of a skipping rope made out of fairy lights, weapons are neon gloves and “pew, pew”-style vocalisations – and that is part of the ridiculous fun. With numerous quick-change outfits so each actor can play multiple roles and scenes designed to allow each performer to bring their improvisation skills to the table, this is the essence of the best in fringe comedy.

With an all-male cast and no female characters, there’s also an unashamedly, confidently, queer tinge to many of the relationships. From the homoeroticism of the Ace Pilots who spend their time admiring each other’s shirtless physiques to the frisson between Sammy and Ranger, and Roe’s robot’s unrequited affection for his evil sidekick, it’s fun to see same-sex attraction at the heart of comedy without it being the butt of the joke.

The show is not without flaws, most especially with the unraked seating of the Udderbelly Festival’s Spiegeltent meaning that any action taking place while seated or lying on the stage is all but invisible beyond the first couple of rows. But with a running time that comes in under an hour, Police Cops in Space manages to cram in more laughs than some shows twice its length. Robots may not be able to laugh in the Police Cops’ universe, but for the rest of us, its blend of hilarious humour and parody is a blast.

Continues until 18 August 2024