The Chief: Comedy police boss 'always digs himself into a hole'

BBC News

19-02-2025

In one of the most famous sketches from the hit comedy Scots Squad, chief of police Cameron Miekelson is seen at a press conference apologising to one offended group only to succeed in insulting a different one.Even beekeepers, bald men and the "avian community" get an apology as The Chief struggles to avoid using accidentally insulting turns of phrase."He just always digs himself into a hole," says actor Jack Docherty, who has been playing the character for more than a decade. "Sometimes you just want him to stop talking."For Docherty, the comedy comes from The Chief's failed attempts to say the right thing despite his desperate desire to be seen as "woke"."I think it is funnier if he accepts it and embraces it and then messes it up," he says.Docherty, who rose to fame in Scottish sketch show Absolutely in the late 1980s, has played Chief Commissioner Miekelson in eight series of the BBC comedy show Scot Squad but now the top cop has finally got his own show."We want the fans of Scots Squad to come with us but this is a different thing," Docherty says. "It was a mock documentary but this is a sitcom. We are not improvising quite as much. It's a little bit more real world."
Docherty says he wants the audience to feel like The Chief is more of a real character than he was in the sketch show. "I loved playing him behind that desk when he's being an enormous buffoon but I don't think you can be like that for an entire half an hour," he says."We thought it would be nice to see what that character is like at home."In the sitcom, he is reunited with his estranged daughter and his ex-wife (played by Lorraine McIntosh) also pops up to cause him problems.
For Docherty, it's funny to see a senior officer whose life is totally policed by other people.At work it is his deputy, Katriona Muldoon (played by Carmen Pieraccini), who is really in control as well as the head of diversity and inclusion who is on hand to try to stop Chief Miekelson putting his foot in it.At home, his daughter is a climate activist who wants to control her father's home life.Amid all this, The Chief is flailing around trying to remain relevant. "We wanted the idea that he is holding onto the cliff with his fingertips going 'don't sack me'," Docherty says.Despite his flaws, he insists The Chief is a likeable character. "There are certain monstrous aspects of him because he's so pompous and he's so certain that he's right and everybody else is wrong but I think he is trying his best," he says.
The Chief starts on Thursday 20 February on BBC Scotland at 10pm. All four episodes are available on BBC iPlayer from the 20th.