After having watched all five episodes I concur with Al's comments and add my view that it's been long overdue for someone to parody OS&H people. To misquote/mangle one of Oscar Wilde's sayings, 'if there's one thing worse than being parodied, it's not being parodied!' While some of the humour is blatantly cringeworthy, I found other bits quite funny and no better or worse than the humour on other TV programmes past and present. However, that's just my opinion based on what I think is my wide sense of humour. There was an element of wit in the first episode when Gerald Wright (GW) was inside the lingerie shop and retrieved his lost place in the counter queue by phoning the shop assistant. In addition, GW was well and truly 'hoist with his own petard' when his team complied with his earlier strict instructions and refused to let him pass through a cordoned area of highway because he wasn't wearing a helmet and a hi-vis clothing while returning to the lingerie shop. Also, I had a similar experience to that mentioned by Al. in #36: My missus saw some of this week's episode and very kindly suggested that I was rather like GW because I formerly worked for a local authority in a health & safety team (true), have enough gripes to fill an entire episode of BBC TV's "Grumpy Old Men" (true) and am a "bit of a nutter". This latter point, though debatable, amused me considerably because, as "Wright Way" watchers will confirm, the Mayor of Basilricky's new personal assistant (a snooty female with no scruples about queue jumping) loses no opportunity to tell GW that he is a nutter ! :-) Another thought: In the first episode Gerald Wright told his team that health and safety "is not common sense. The Council doesn't pay us to be reasonable or exercise our judgement - it pays us to minimise risk, even if no such risk exists...." Could it be that Ben Elton drew inspiration for these lines and other elements from reading some of the postings on this forum?!!! :-) Finally for now, I don't think OS&H people should feel threatened or demeaned by "The Wright Way". Did hoteliers or police officers fare badly because of the 'over the top' characters and situations depicted respectively by "Fawlty Towers" and "The Thin Blue Line"? However, it's just possible that some devoted readers of the 'Daily Wail' might watch "The Wright Way" and gleefully perceive that it's a 'fly-on-the-wall' type documentary. If so, there's sadly no hope for such people. :-) p.s. "Hoist with his own petard" comes from Hamlet by Shakespeare. After Al.'s excerpt from The Louse by Robert Burns it seemed appropriate to try and keep up the literary standard of this thread!

It's finished - well the first series anyway. And a second series? Will there be one? Hope so do I. Go on, BBC brave be. I loved it. Ben Elton was spot on in his lampooning of the profession. We all know someone with a bit of Gerald Wright in them. You don't? Look again. He might be closer than you think. Minimising risk, Team Health and Safety; minimising risk, even where only minimal risk exists.

agree don't I

Were the BBC listening to us! http://www.bbc.co.uk/new...ertainment-arts-23242124

Thank goodness for that! Ben Elton just tried to cash in on the 'elf and safety' culture, but it didn't work, and he's just not a good enough writer to make it work. There is plenty of humour to be found in the work of safety people (I know from my time in consultancy), without resorting to plain silliness.