Nasty battle for power

VICE PRINCIPALS: SOIREE OF DARK HUMOUR, UNFIT FOR SENSITIVE FOLK

- Hein Kaiser

If you like Biggie Best sanitised comedy, then stop reading right now. If you loved Shameless, continue reading.

Vice Principals on Showmax is a two-season soiree of political incorrectness, crass dark humour that is incredibly funny. But it is not for sensitive folk nor is it for kids. At all.

In the back halls of a South Carolina high school, a quiet storm brews over an unremarkable prize: the principal's hot seat. Because principal Bill Murray, who puts in a five-minute cameo, finally announces his retirement, ambition spurs his two vice principals, Neal Gamby and Lee Russell into action.

They both want the job, and are determined to get it, at one another's expense.

Gamby, played by Danny McBride, is the opposite of his nemesis and handles discipline at the school.

He reminds (one) of a sterner version of Major Dad, the sitcom that starred Gerald McRaney so many years ago.

Gamby polices the school, yell in hand. Russell, his foe, is a smooth talking, glib politician.

Played with menacing grossness, there is no other word to describe his ick, by Walton Goggins.

But there is a spanner in the works. Just as the contest between the pair heats up, the school board appoints someone else.

Enter Dr Belinda Brown, played with an iron resolve by Kimberly Hebert Gregory.

She arrives from Philadelphia, armed with experience, no-nonsense principles, and a determination to change the school's culture.

Brown has no time for skulduggery and funny business and starts making changes which, of course, the terrible twins don't like.