Parks and Recreation

The best sitcoms are about the friction between little people and big dreams. It is a tradition as old as time. Tony Hancock, Basil Fawlty, David Brent and Alan Partridge all have egos too big for their towns. Pumped on self-importance, we laugh as life deflates them. Parks and Recreation’s Leslie Knope is both of and antithetical to this tradition. Being the Deputy Director of the Pawnee City Department of Parks and Recreation, her plans to be the first female President seem starry-eyed; however as unrealistic as her aspirations may be, we admire her because - unlike the said males- she is actually good at her job. The problem isn’t so much with her, rather the team around her.

Trapped in the province.

 Joining Leslie in her war against red tape is Parks and Recreation Director, Ron Swanson, a man who believes the state sector should be bulldozed to the ground with the subsequent clean-up sold to the highest bidder. Ron is akin to Catch 22’s Major Major, in that you can only have a meeting with him when he’s not there. Essentially, his work routine is a game of hide and seek where the job never finds him. If having a work-shy superior wasn’t hard enough, Leslie has to cope with subordinates who have made a full-time job out of shirking responsibility. Tom Haverford is one such underling: as a child of Hip Hop, Tom has been raised to believe in glitz and glamour. Realising his world is now a government cubical, he spends time devising business plans that are beyond his capabilities - in essence a Richard Branson with a Northern Rock account. Another one of her charges is intern April Ludgate. Interns are today’s capitalist success story: poorly paid but thankful for gainful employment, they work with a fervour that borders on the insane, so desperate are they for that elusive permanent contract. Well, April isn’t that kind of intern. If it takes more muscles to frown than smile, then April is the ripped face of apathy. Only Jerry, a rotund civil servant, offers anything in the way of good ideas, and he isn’t listened to because he once mispronounced the word ‘murial.’ Driven to create better parks for the townspeople, Leslie will not let these road blocks get in her way. Against her ‘Yes I Can’ enthusiasm, resistance is futile: the job can either be done now or immediately. Her team, part afraid, part in thrall to this zeal, join together to make her plans come true.

Leslie and her team.

It is this togetherness that makes the sitcom so special. I don’t think it is the funniest sitcom of all time, but it is immensely likeable and charming. At the last Comedy Awards, Johnny Vegas complained about the sneering state of sitcom: how Ricky Gervais’ atom bomb of ironic racism and disabalism has continued to pollute the comedy landscape. In his speech he praised Paul Whitehouse for creating characters that championed ordinary people. Parks does the same. Leslie Knope is the unrecognised face of civic duty: the people who collect our rubbish, clean our streets, open our libraries, improve our towns. She is a totem of what can be achieved when your passion out-rivals your connections. In a world of cut-backs and kickbacks, she perseveres.

In Leslie Knope we trust.      

Parks and Recreation is available on Dave, Monday 8pm.