Borderline. Image shows from L to R: Clive Hassler (David Elms), Grant Brodie (Jamie Michie), Linda Proctor (Jackie Clune), Andy Church (Liz Kingsman), Tariq Mansoor (David Avery). Copyright: Little Rock
Borderline

Borderline

  • TV sitcom
  • Channel 5
  • 2016 - 2017
  • 12 episodes (2 series)

Improvised mockumentary about the border guards working in an airport. Stars Jackie Clune, David Avery, Liz Kingsman, David Elms, Jamie Michie and more.

  • JustWatch Streaming rank this week: 6,215

Episode menu

Series 1, Episode 1 - Profiling

Borderline. Image shows from L to R: DJ Stefano Rocco (Jamie Demetriou), Clive Hassler (David Elms), Tariq Mansoor (David Avery). Copyright: Little Rock
Chief Inspector Proctor is sent a set of new directives from the Home Office that amount to an instruction to carry out racial profiling. Stuck with having to persuade her team to adopt a set of rules that even she finds offensive or risk her job by angering her Home Office masters, in desperation she even tries to enlist support outside her department from the baggage handlers.

Further details

Proctor receives a set of new directives from the Home Office that amount to an instruction to carry out racial profiling. Stuck with the unenviable position of having to persuade her team to adopt a set of rules that even she finds offensive, or risk her job by angering her Home Office superiors, in desperation she tries to enlist support outside her department from Asian baggage handlers Suj and Mo...

Broadcast details

Date
Tuesday 2nd August 2016
Time
10pm
Channel
Channel 5
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Wednesday 14th December 2016 11:00pm Comedy Central
Monday 19th December 2016 1:00am CC Extra
Tuesday 14th August 2018 3:50am CC Extra
Wednesday 3rd July 2019 3:00am CC Extra
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 3:10am C5

Cast & crew

Cast
Jackie Clune Linda Proctor
David Avery Tariq Mansoor
Liz Kingsman Andy Church
David Elms Clive Hassler
Jamie Michie Grant Brodie
Guz Khan Mo Khan
Sunil Patel Sujan Stevens
Ralf Little Narrator
Guest cast
Jamie Demetriou DJ Stefano Rocco
Writing team
Chris Gau Writer
Michael Orton-Toliver Writer
Matt Jones Story
Ralf Little Story
Production team
Matt Jones (as Matt L Jones) Director
Zoƫ Rocha Producer
Ralf Little Executive Producer
Sarah Doole Executive Producer
Chris Gau Executive Producer
Michael Orton-Toliver Executive Producer
Amer Iqbal Editor
Jonathan Paul Green Production Designer
Andrew Rodger Director of Photography
Lucia Santa-Maria Costume Designer
Velina Iankova Make-up Designer
Vlad Berkhemer Composer
Jake Rollins 1st Assistant Director

Press

In its almost twenty years on air, Channel Five have produced very few sitcoms with the only ones I can remember being co-productions with other networks. Written and created by Chris Gau and Michael Orton-Toliver, Borderline is a mockumentary set around the border control of a fictional Northend Airport. Of all of the comedy formats I feel that the mockumentary must be one of the easiest to produce as the characters can spout of expositional dialogue without it feeling out of place. Borderline also does feel like the sort of show that you would see on Channel Five ordinarily with it smacking of the likes of Holiday Airport UK and UK Border Force. The characters that Gau and Orton-Toliver have created are also believable enough and resemble those sort of people you'd see on a low-rent documentary. So for example you have the pencil-pushing boss Proctor (Jackie Clune) who in the opening episode is keen on enforcing the latest mandate from the Home Office. There's also Clive (David Elms) who is perfectly suited to the job and Grant Brodie (Jamie Michie) who is known for detaining a lot of passengers purely based on their ethnicity. Just like any workplace comedy, Borderline has a couple of characters who don't want to be there with Tariq (David Avery) having aspirations to be a DJ and Andy (Liz Kingsman) wanting to be anywhere other than the airport. While I thought that the characterisation of the central five figures was strong, Borderline lacked anything in the way of amusing material that felt original. Anything that was done during Borderline had been done better elsewhere in the likes of The Office, W1A and the incredibly underrated People Like Us. In fact Borderline feels rather old-fashioned when you consider the fly-on-the-wall documentaries that the show spoofs aren't as prominent as they were at the turn of the century. Of the cast I enjoyed the performances given by Clune and Elms both of whom inhabited their characters well and tried their best with the weak material. Whilst I do applaud Channel Five for having a go at producing a sitcom I didn't find anything particularly memorable about Borderline. The most damning thing I can say about the show is that I didn't laugh once and that's not good for the first episode of a sitcom which is meant to make you want to stick around for the rest of the series.

Matt, The Custard TV, 8th August 2016

I don't look to Channel 5 for comedy. I don't look to them for anything, really, unless I've taken a severe blow to the head and want to recover by watching Big Brother and car chases. So I was surprised to find myself e-mailing their press team about this new show.

It's a spoof documentary set in the fictional Northend Airport and follows the bungling Border Force as they try to cope with directives from the Home Office that order them to keep out the bad guys whilst remaining politically correct and most definitely not using that awfully bad word - profiling. "No-one is using that word!" gasps the boss. So when an Arab passenger turns up draped in a headscarf and white robes, the beleaguered official sighs, "Aw man! We're definitely gonna have to ask you some questions." But definitely not in a "profiley" way...

It's topical, yes, but at the same time feels very dated. The spoof documentary set in an incompetent workplace was done to perfection by The Office back in 2001. This often feels like a tepid tribute act, but does have some good moments.

Julie McDowall, The National (Scotland), 2nd August 2016

New mockumentary, narrated and exec-produced by Ralf Little, that follows a dysfunctional border control team at a minor UK airport as they cope with impassive foreign nationals, drug smugglers and bellicose Home Office directives. It's The Office with cavity searches, although judging by this bumpy first episode, it may take a while to find a groove. Edinburgh fringe veteran Jackie Clune is reliably good as harried team leader Linda Proctor.

Graeme Virtue, The Guardian, 2nd August 2016

TV preview: Borderline

Much is made of how Borderline is part-improvised, though it's the result, not the process, that matters, and the subdued tone does mean it's relatively short on laugh-out-loud moments, though there are plenty of droll smiles. And while the characters are engaging, they don't have the strong personalities that would make Borderline an appointment-to-view, though that's always a hard call to make from just one episode before we know them properly.

Steve Bennett, Chortle, 2nd August 2016

TV review: Borderline, 5

There is very little that is original about Borderline, written by Chris Gau and Mike Orton-Toliver and partly improvised by the cast, but the good news is that there are some nice performances and decent slow-burn gags.

Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 2nd August 2016

Borderline is proof that the mockumentary is alive

Real life, properly portrayed, almost always contains moments of inadvertent hilarity. That was the whole grounding of the spoof-documentary style made famous by The Office. Borderline, a new comedy set in the border control department of a fictional Northend Airport, showed that mockumentary remains very funny when done well.

Benji Wilson, The Telegraph, 2nd August 2016

C5's original comedy Borderline has great promise

For the first time in nine years, Channel 5 has created its own comedy series, Borderline. Set in the fictional Northend airport, the mockumentary follows a group of inept border guards trying to enforce Home Office policy. It is truly a comedy for post-Brexit Britain, and it has promise.

Daisy Wyatt, i Newspaper, 2nd August 2016

Channel 5's first homegrown comedy in 10 years, Borderline is a mockumentary following an inept team of UK border officials. The retro-scripted rockumentary is based in the border security office of Northland Airport, a small provincial airport in the UK. The six-part series follows the daily lives of the staff who work there, their relationships with each other and the obstacles they face on a daily basis. Tackling the hot topic of immigration, Borderline examines what happens when 'normal' people have to make decisions they wouldn't usually make, because of a new government initiative or legislation. Shining a light on the complexities of these decisions, and based on writer Michael Orton-Toliver/p]'s own real life experience, Borderline shows these issues through a humorous lens and, in true British comedy tradition, give us an opportunity to laugh at ourselves in the face of adversity.

Elliot Gonzalez, I Talk Telly, 1st August 2016

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