Joe Tracini

Me And The Voice In My Head review

Joe Tracini's disarmingly frank take on borderline personality disorder.

Me And The Voice In My Head review

Joe Tracini finds humour in the darkest of places.

Joe Tracini interview

"I've still got to be here because there are people that care about me more than I care about me. And so I know that I can't go anywhere."

Joking about my mental health helps me cope

Making fun out of it is my way of letting people know I'm not giving up, writes Joe Tracini.

Joe Tracini discusses borderline personality disorder

How comedian Joe Tracini saved his own life - and gave hope to others.

As all right thinking people agree, Cheers is the greatest ensemble TV sitcom of all time. There have been several attempts to relocate its success in a British pub, the latest of which is Inn Mates, a pilot by John Warburton who is the first writer to have gone through the BBC's College of Comedy and got a script on screen.

Whilst it falls way short of its illustrious American predecessor, Inn Mates is amiable and entertaining fun set in a red-brick modern monstrosity optimistically called The Friendship Inn.

It revolves around the disparate groups of characters that frequent or serve in it. These include two twentysomething couples with contrasting lifestyles, their sexually abandoned alcoholic single friend, the ruthless landlady and her wheelchair-using DJ, two dozy and doting community support police officers, and a gay man whose donated sperm has come back to haunt him in the form of a teenage biological son desperate to form a bond.

The various strands don't really hang together, and Inn Mates feels slightly like several sitcoms sharing the same half hour. Of these the father/son scenario is by far the strongest, and could even go it alone as a spin-off.

It offers pathos, charm, wit, conflict and originality. Plus on-screen chemistry between Neil Morrissey, playing against type, and Joe Tracini, who is so good that I can almost forgive him for Coming Of Age.

Watching the antics of Maisie and Pete (sexy couple in relationship set-to), Sharon and John (not-so-sexy couple who worry they're getting boring) and Blue (party animal who tends to wake up in abandoned supermarket trollies) was a bit like watching an episode of Hollyoaks but with added funnies.

More interesting were those on the periphery of this pilot: the tubby pair of community support officers bonded by naivety and fantasies; and Josh, played by Joe Pasquale's round-faced son, Joe Tracini, trying to earn the love of sperm donor dad Neil Morrissey, an intriguing proposition if ever I saw one.

This one will need time to grow - unlike Grandma's House, which has the makings of a sure-fire hit.

A comedy pilot from writer/comedian John Warburton, this sitcom is centred on a load of mates at a pub, the Friendship Inn. Hence Inn Mates. Its first gag is someone getting hit in the balls, and things decline from there. Jonathan Dixon (Darryl off Corrie) is joined by Joe Tracini (most recently seen in BBC4's The Great Outdoors) and Neil Morrissey. A likable cast, sure, but this is barely Two Pints-equalling.