Jo Brand strikes comedy gold as she skewers council jobsworths
This is turning out to be a fine week for new comedy. After Morgana Robinson’s cavalcade of celebrity impressions in The Agency, Jo Brand returned with a stinging office burlesque called Damned (C4).
There was a time, a few years ago, when it seemed Brand could no longer be bothered to do anything but world-weary appearances on panel games. her hospital sitcom Getting On, which won her a Bafta in 2010, changed that — suddenly she had a licence to highlight the damage done to the health service by excessive bureaucracy and political correctness, while making us laugh as nurse Kim Wilde.
she followed up Getting On this year with the same character in Going Forward, a satire on private healthcare. Now she has teamed up with pal Alan Davies for a social services sitcom set in a council office.
That’s taking a real risk. hospital comedies are a TV staple, from the 1970s’ James Bolam and Richard Wilson in Only When i Laugh, to the midwife farce The Delivery Man last year. We love to laugh at medics and nurses, because we revere them . . .even though secretly most of us are also slightly terrified of them.
But nobody lives in awe of social workers. Little hitlers, the lot of them, small-minded jobsworths on power trips. Brand deals with that by tackling the stereotype head-on. ‘Obviously,’ she snaps, ‘i really get my kicks from taking innocent children away from families.’
Davies — bone-idle, incompetent, always on the phone to his fiancee — has a stalker who is smitten with him. Played by Aisling Bea, she’s a single mother who is teaching her son to regard the social worker as his dad: ‘he sees you twice as much as he sees his real father.’
she’s clingy as a limpet, and he’s too weak to prise her off. ‘it’s my job to give out appropriate advice and support and resources,’ he pleads. ‘it’s not my job to care.’
The filming has the handheld, lowbudget feel Brand always uses, but most of the dialogue is tightly scripted rather than improvised.
The office banter is just what you’d expect in a social services department, as Brand and Davies tease a pompous colleague by mispronouncing his name. ‘That’s borderline racist,’ he seethes, noting the crime in his pocketbook. What else would a little hitler do?
This set-up could easily disintegrate, unless the cast keep working on ways to make us like their unlovable characters. so far, they’re giving it everything.
Nick Knowles and his builder mates Julian and Billy from DiY sOs aren’t exactly working themselves into the ground on The Retreat (BBC2), which runs all this week. They’re sweating hard, it’s true, but that’s because they are at a meditation resort in Thailand, doing yoga on the beach.
Knowles claims this isn’t a junket — he’s doing it because he’s stressed. he certainly looks frayed: the bags under his eyes are so heavy, he probably had to pay extra at airport check-in.
The excess baggage certainly wasn’t camera equipment. Most of the footage is shot on mini-recorders and laptops, and the sound is like bad reception on a smartphone.
There’s no doubting the sincerity of the other seekers after inner harmony that Knowles meets.
Mostly women, they look desperate for some antidote to the anxiety in their lives.
Billy, 66, seizes the chance to let his emotions rush out, grieving for the daughter he lost 20 years ago.
But it’s hard to see the attraction of Thailand. Knowles admits it’s no haven of peace: ‘This is the noisiest place i have ever stayed on holiday — cats, dogs, mopeds, boats in the middle of the night . . .’
The detox therapy looks like a complete scam. it starts with a slimy yellow drink that claims to be a ‘liver flush’ and continues with a starvation diet. The constant talk of colonic irrigation is just revolting.
The yoga teachers talk hogwash about ‘waking up the meridians of the body’, while allowing guests to sit in the sun till they’re broiled like lobsters.
if this is the cure for stress, i’d rather have the heart attack.