Joanna Scanlan

A welcome second series for this bleak comedy set in a geriatric ward. It's co-written by Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and The Thick of It's Joanna Scanlan, who all star. Scanlan's Denise is bovine and grouchy, Brand's Kim perplexed and old-fashioned, and Pepperdine's Pippa neurotic and self-centred. Tonight, a homeless lady is wheeled in unconscious and then passed around like a hot potato, while a visiting daughter becomes increasingly irate at being lied to about her mother's treatment. Around all this swirl incompetent orderlies and inept students. It's great to see a trio of women at the creative helm of this brave and, at times, very funny show.

This finely crafted comedy transfers over from BBC4. It's only a mini-series - perhaps the powers that be will see how it fares this time round and commission more - but for an understated yet sharp sitcom, it can't be beaten. It's set on NHS Ward B4, a place where old folks go to wither away and where the staff also look as though they have seen their best years. From this unremarkable setting, the three writers-actors - Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan - have created a comic gem, knowing that while a note of pathos is fine it still has to be funny.

Jo Brand stars as Nurse Kim Wilde in this very funny, improvised comedy set in a geriatric ward, where the main business is getting on with the daily round of bowel movements and hip problems. She's the junior member of a team that includes Sister Den Flixter and Dr Pippa Moore, played by Brand's co-writers Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine. In episode one, they are about to be joined by a new male matron. The series has previously been shown on BBC Four, and has two Bafta nominations to its credit.

Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan's superb sitcom, shown on BBC4 last year, is set in an NHS old people's ward and has to be beautifully written to avoid being, well, worthy. Fortunately, it is easily funny enough. So much so, the viewer can be really punched in the face by the poignancy. It is extremely well-acted too.

Shown a year ago on BBC4, here's a much-deserved terrestrial repeat for this black-as-the-grave hospital comedy. An understaffed backwater of the NHS, B4 is the kind of ward where you're either afraid you're going to die, or, worse, worried that you might not.

Written by the cast - Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan - it's filmed in a documentary style, under unforgiving lighting and shot through with cold-eyed truth.

On B4, a lethal combination of self-interest, red tape, paperwork and political correctness conspire to ensure that nothing, least of all patient care, can be achieved. And that concept is perfectly encapsulated tonight by the drama of a poo on a chair.

Only three episodes were produced in this first series a second series of six episodes is now in the pipeline for this autumn. That will be on BBC4 as well - in case you thought it was only the NHS that made incomprehensible decisions...

Joanna Scanlan on playing Terri

"Terri Coverley's natural habitat is the Buckingham Palace Garden Party. She's already been invited on six occasions. If Terri is not actually in attendance at The Palace, then she likes to dress as though she is."

Toilet humour. It isn't big and it isn't clever. But who cares when the brilliant Getting On, which I'm missing already, can turn the humble stool into a rich source of wipe-away-the-tears mirth?

This bleakly endearing geriatric ward comedy has only had a three episode run but richly deserves a full length series: with nurse Kim, sister Den and Dr Moore, writer/stars Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine have created an unforgettable trio. It helps, of course, if you like your potty humour wrapped up in a quilted loo roll of sophistication.

Taking revenge on neurotic meddler Dr Moore, Den decides to tamper with her precious report on patient faeces. A simple word substitution does the trick. 'What's another word for faeces?' queries Den. 'My youngest calls them plop plops,' offers Kim. Cue the following: 'The chart demonstrated construct validity for characterising stool function together with concurrent validity for characterising frequency of plop plops.' It cracks me up just typing it.

Getting On gets better. Somehow Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine have created a comedy about a modern NHS ward that is piercingly weird, coldly plausible, heartbreaking and hilarious. This week, a foul-mouthed racist OAP went on the rampage, delivering a bloody nose to the new male matron, who desperately tried to remember his stay-calm management training module as his nose bled.

The humour in Getting On is stealthy: the harassed doctor searched for her stool samples, hustled pathetically for a car-parking space and saw not that many patients - then looked at her lined face in the toilet and wondered where the years had gone. This moving reverie was interrupted by the head nurse rapping on the door, insisting that it should never be locked. The doctor she fancied, played by The Thick of It's Peter Capaldi (who also directs Getting On), looked past her at a much younger model. The comedy in Getting On is as wincing as The Thick of It, with the added pathos of near-death patients wheezing their last. Or not, as happened this week, with the sudden, vexing recovery of one.

Ward B4 is a backwater of the NHS, a place where old folks go to wither away and where the staff also look as though they have seen their best years. From this unremarkable setting, the three writer-actors - Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan - have created a gem of a comedy. They never overplay their hand, generally stay one step ahead and know that while a note of pathos is fine it still has to be funny. In this second episode, sister Den and nurse Kim have an abusive patient to deal with.

Getting On: Joanna Scanlan ponders playing Nurse

Joanna Scanlan - who you may recognise as The Thick of It's long-suffering Terri, stars as Sister Den Flixter in BBC Four's new comic drama Getting On, which she co-wrote. Den is a nurse, a role that Joanna has some familiarity with, as she explains.