You might think crime-scene cleaning is very technical,” says Greg Davies. But the comedian best known as the host of Taskmaster and Never Mind the Buzzcocks says he spoke to a real crime-scene cleaner as part of the research for The Cleaner – “and he said the most important tool in his kit was a big bag of towels. He said, ‘You toss a load of those onto the blood and get the worst of it up. It’s just human matter at the end of the day.’”
But while Davies’s quirky sitcom – back for a second season on BBC One – uses the biological residue of violent death to comic effect, The Cleaner’s appeal lies in its poignant exploration of what matters to the humans still occupying the scene. Each episode begins with Davies’ hazmat-suited character – Wicky – arriving at a different location with his bag of towels and bottles of bleach and being confronted by an emotional mess that he’s far less equipped to process.
