Radio Times review

There's something so delightfully mischievous about No Offence, a hybrid of creator Paul Abbott's Shameless and Tony Garnett's gritty The Cops. It knows it's rude and unruly, but it just doesn't care.

As the hunt for the serial killer of women with Down's syndrome chugs along in the background, DI Viv Deering's tumultuous team of detectives, including Will Mellor as the keen DC Spike Tanner, is investigating the murder of a young Asian woman. She's been killed in an arson attack, and suspicion falls squarely on a group of vociferous, shaven-headed racists.

The subject matter is touchy (and becomes increasingly so as the plot bends), but episode writer Paul Tomalin resolutely doesn't bury us in cliché, turning the story on its head while encouraging us to laugh at the stag-night antics of a particularly gormless fascist buffoon.

We're also given a peek into Viv's (Joanna Scanlan) home life, which provides at least one of the episode's surprises.