The Piglet Files is a British sitcom produced by

London Weekend Television London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 ...

(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 The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of ...

and the

collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

, 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 The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

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 Panda, then Panther, but those are already in use, they then incorrectly stated that Puma was the next available name before correcting themselves and assigning Peter the next name..."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 An assassin is a person who commits targeted murder. Assassin may also refer to: Origin of term * Someone belonging to the medieval Persian Ismaili order of Assassins Animals and insects * Assassin bugs, a genus in the family ''Reduviid ...

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 Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst (born 20 April 1961) is an English actor. He began his career as a child actor and became best known for his role as Rodney Trotter in the sitcom '' Only Fools and Horses'' (1981–2003). He also had major roles in oth ...

*Major Maurice Drummond – Clive Francis *Major Andrew Maxwell – John Ringham *Dexter – Michael Percival *Sarah Chapman – Serena Evans *Flint – Louise Catt *Lewis – Steven Law *Trueman – Paul Cooper

Series overview

Episodes

Series 1 (1990)

Series 2 (1991)

Series 3 (1992)

DVD release

All three series of ''The Piglet Files'' are available on DVD, through Network.

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Piglet Files, The 1990s British sitcoms 1990 British television series debuts 1992 British television series endings English-language television shows ITV sitcoms London Weekend Television shows MI5 in fiction Television series by ITV Studios