Taking the cake

PORRIDGE | BBC1 9.30PM

There’s a moment in tonight’s

Porridge that shows how it’s a cut above your average sitcom: Aziz has been coerced into a fake visit from his ‘auntie’, who’s really an associate of resident hardman Dougie Parfitt smuggling in a cake (or possibly a loaf) containing drugs.

Fletch has also been given a cake for his birthday, in an identical box. Both cakes have to be checked by Officer

Meekie afterwards – so sitcom law dictates they pick up each other’s, right? Not quite: there is, of course, a mix-up that puts Dougie’s cake in the wrong hands, but it’s way more -complicated than you expect…

Meanwhile, the well-meaning but ineffectual Officer Braithwaite has been demoted to admin duty and replaced by Officer Gemmell – whose manner is eerily similar to Meekie’s…