From jokes about dogging to questioning the nature of community policing, Black Ops is like nothing else on TV. Here, its team talk stereotypes, slapstick and why Top Boy’s Ashley Walters is a fan
On an east London council estate, two hoodie-clad dealers on a street corner sell baggies of heroin to local addicts. An armed gang swagger over to protect their patch, demanding to know where they got their “food” and whether they’re “feds”. But no, this isn’t the new series of Top Boy. Welcome to Black Ops, one of the funniest, freshest homegrown sitcoms of 2023.
Black Ops comes from the Famalam stable, reuniting two of the groundbreaking Black British sketch show’s leading lights. Bafta-winning actor and Famalam creator Akemnji “AK” Ndifornyen teams up with comedy firecracker Gbemisola Ikumelo because of a long-held certainty that may not be suitable for his mother. “Right from the first day of shooting Famalam, I said: ‘We need to create a vehicle for Gbemi because she’s [expletive] brilliant!’ Don’t put the expletive in there because my mum will be reading,” he says. Ikumelo didn’t need asking twice: “I came along with a notepad full of ideas, but what I really wanted to do was a buddy show, a comedy caper.”
