Brassic: This tale of cheeky rogues is pure filth — exactly what we need on TV

The comedy stars This is England's Joe Gilgun and Michelle Keegan

DAVID SEXTON 

Filth! there’s a time and place for filth and we’re in luck: it’s tonight on Sky. Brassic, a new comedy created by the edgy actor Joe Gilgun (This is England),  in collaboration with the former lead scriptwriter on Shameless, Danny Brocklehurst, is a tsunami of filth. The perfect end to the perfect day.

Gilgun plays Vinnie, a charismatic, bi-polar crim who lives in a derelict train carriage in the woods somewhere in rural Lancashire. He’s the leader of a little gang of ne’er-do-wells, poor (Brassic = boracic lint, skint) but dishonest.

There’s fat, stupid, speech-impeded Cardi (so-called because he looks as if he’s about to have a cardiac arrest). There’s crooked garagiste J. J. There’s Ash, a big lad from a traveller family, ready to thump anybody at any time, massively endowed too.

There’s Tommo (Ryan Sampson), an absolute hound for sex of any kind.  “You wouldn’t want him hanging out of the back of your sister,” reckons Vinnie, “he’s had chlamydia more often than he’s had hot dinners.”

Then there’s Vinnie’s brainy best mate, Dylan (Damien Molony), who’s actually trying to live a slightly more regular life, because his lovely girlfriend Erin (Michelle Keegan off Corrie) has a little boy and she’s determined to go to college, move away and find a better future. Vinnie, rascally though he may be, is quite vulnerable, however,  and relies a lot on Dylan when he gets into scrapes — and anyway, Dylan himself is always up for a bit of  thieving, when he should be child-minding.

“There’s three of us, isn’t there, in this relationship?” observes Erin, after yet another letdown from the pair of them. “Well, if there is, I’m the one getting the least sex,” says Vinnie, brightly. Neither does Vinnie get much help from his knob of a doctor, Chris Cox, Dominic West, Gilgun’s costar in the movie Pride.

While Vinnie’s telling him about his suicidal thoughts, Chris is browsing a contact site on his phone. He proudly shows Vinnie his greatest hits. “My todger looks like a dog’s been at it, look at that!” the conservative thinker Sir Peregrine Worsthorne used to lament that sexual liberation was all very well when confined to the aristocratic Bloomsbury set but had proved a disaster when it filtered down to the lower classes. It’s a shame Sir Peregrine is no longer with us to get the details  from Tommo.

“Who gives a s**t where anyone sticks the d**k any more?” he asks. “Point being, we’re mammals, creatures with urges...”

“You’re an ambassador for a more tolerant society, Tommo”, says Vinnie, admiringly. More than an ambassador, a host, since he runs a sex club. “They’re all into that space-docking now, I had to take up the carpet.” Good to know they still have time for more celestial matters. 

So there’s our rogueish gang, like a filthy Famous Five. Or last of the Summer Wine crossbred with Trainspotting. Each week, the lads have a comically criminal adventure. Tonight, it’s stealing a prize Shetland pony. Next week, it’s safebreaking via a sewer, a big poo joke. It’s always good to see how the other half live. Filthily! 

Brassic airs on Sky One at 10pm and 11pm, then all episodes available on Now TV.