Jo Brand

The 80s comedy club where heckling became an art form

What's left of the old Mitre Arms sits on a grim, grey stretch of the A102, within gobbing distance of the Blackwall Tunnel. It looks like the sort of pub where you'd get bottled if you looked at someone in a funny way. So it's hard to believe that in the late 80s this place helped launch the careers of a generation of alternative comedians including Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves, Jenny Eclair, Jerry Sadowitz, Jeremy Hardy and Jo Brand.

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Jo Brand to host Great British Bake Off spin-off

Jo Brand is to front a sister show to The Great British Bake Off aptly titled An Extra Slice.

The professional social services depicted in Playhouse Presents: Damned, the latest in Sky Arts 1's series of one-off comedy-dramas didn't seem to care.

Written by Morwenna Banks and Jo Brand (who also starred), this was Brand's mordant hospital sitcom Getting On transferred to the offices of a council's children's services.

The tropes of this type of comedy were all in place, including restless camera work and naturalistic acting. Brand and Alan Davies played social workers who have been round long enough to instantly recognise a prank call when someone phones in to say they've found a baby in the meat section of Tesco.

Also involved were Rebekah Staton and Kevin Eldon, the latter as Martin, who used to work in the office before suffering "mental health issues" but who's now invited himself back and making himself so useful that no one cares.

Yes, it's formulaic in its way - but when the constituent parts are The Thick Of It, Twenty Twelve and Getting On then it's my kind of formula. Damned is so primed to be made into a full series that it might detonate of its own accord - I hope Sky (or someone else) is there to record the explosion.

Radio Times review

Jo Brand applies her mordant wit to the fraught world of child protection as she typecasts herself as "the fat, bad-tempered one", Rose, in an office of social workers. She and her fellow socials, Al (Alan Davies) and Nitin (Romesh Ranganathan), are a fairly disarrayed bunch, as likely to be arguing over who should answer the phones as taking kids into care - Rose herself is a harassed single mum, trying desperately to arrange childcare before she leaves for work in the morning.

It all plays disturbingly naturally, with excellent support from Kevin Eldon, Pulling's Rebekah Staton and Brand's Getting On co-star Ricky Grover. The dark humour fizzes along - with a delicious kick at the end.

Jo Brand on why she's written a social worker comedy

It's a grim old life as a social worker. I've always felt rather sorry for them because of the awful reputation they seem to have.

Audio: Jo Brand on social workers

Jo Brand has defended the work of social workers, describing them as "damned if they do and damned if they don't".

Jo Brand interview

The actress, comedian and Splash! judge talks politics, new sitcom Damned and the future for her much-loved BBC4 comedy Getting On.

Now a regular fixture on the stand-up calendar, this is the fifth gala raising funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity.

Filmed in May, more than 20 of the country's best-loved gagsters, including Michael McIntyre, Alan Carr, Jason Manford and Jo Brand, congregated at the O2 arena in London for a marathon of laughs that's been trimmed to a schedule-friendly three hours.

Warwick Davis and Diversity get the night off to a flying start, and if past years are anything to go by, it'll be worth sticking around for the commercial breaks too - you never know who might hijack the ads to shoe-horn in even more laughs.