The Piglet Files

The Piglet Files
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Brian Leveson Paul Minett
Starring	Louise Catt Serena Evans Clive Francis Steven Law Nicholas Lyndhurst Michael Percival John Ringham
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	3
No. of episodes	21
Production
Running time	30 minutes (including adverts)
Production company(s)	LWT
Distributor	ITV Studios
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	7 September 1990 (1990-09-07) – 10 May 1992 (1992-05-10)

The Piglet Files is a British sitcom produced by LWT. The show consisted of three series totalling 21 episodes that ran between 7 September 1990 and 10 May 1992.

The programme follows the life of reluctant MI5 agent Peter "Piglet" Chapman as he tries to instruct his fellow agents on the finer points of spy gadgetry while keeping his wife Sarah in the dark about his new career.

Plot

In the early 1990s, during the intervening period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, MI5 combats the Soviet spies within the United Kingdom while facing their own agents' ineptitude, and the ridicule of the sheer fact that the Soviet Union is no longer a threat; but MI5 knows better and indeed the Soviets are intent on making trouble.

In an effort to alleviate their agents' incompetence, MI5 hires local university teacher Peter Chapman, convincing him by getting him sacked from the university, which leaves him no choice. His new bosses, Maurice Drummond and Andrew Maxwell, assign him to the technology division, and he insists on having a codename, to further his identity in the world of spying. The first codenames listed were Puma, then Panther, but those are already in use and the only remaining P name is..."Piglet." Piglet routinely joins the other field agents on missions—mainly to ensure that MI5 gets its equipment back.

Peter "Piglet" Chapman must now face down Soviet assassins and double agents while keeping his identity as an MI5 technician secret from everyone else, including his wife Sarah.

Characters

• Peter "Piglet" Chapman – Nicholas Lyndhurst
• Major Maurice Drummond – Clive Francis
• Major Andrew Maxwell – John Ringham
• Dexter – Michael Percival
• Sarah Chapman – Serena Evans
• Flint – Louise Catt
• Lewis – Steven Law

Episodes

First series (1990)

• "A Question of Intelligence" (7 September 1990)
• "Fair Exchange" (14 September 1990)
• "A Room with a View" (21 September 1990)
• "The Ice-Man Cometh" (28 September 1990)
• "The Beagle has Landed" (5 October 1990)
• "Now You See It!" (12 October 1990)
• "A Private Member's Bill" (19 October 1990)

Second series (1991)

• "The Wright Stuff" (3 May 1991)
• "Red Spy at Night" (10 May 1991)
• "Piglet in a Trough" (17 May 1991)
• "The Wrong Combination" (24 May 1991)
• "Trouble with Reception" (31 May 1991)
• "The Hunt for Red Decoder" (7 June 1991)
• "Undercover Activity" (14 June 1991)

Third series (1992)

• "Guerrilas in the Mist" (29 March 1992)
• "Sweet and Sour Piglet" (5 April 1992)
• "Sex, Spies and Videotape" (12 April 1992)
• "In Which We Serve" (19 April 1992)
• "The Plane Truth" (26 April 1992)
• "Under New Management" (3 May 1992)
• "With Friends Like These" (10 May 1992)

DVD release

Network released the first series of The Piglet Files on DVD in January 2011, the second in April 2012, and the third and final in November 2012.

External links

• The Piglet Files at TV.com
• The Piglet Files at epguides.com
• The Piglet Files on IMDb