Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell interview

The star of Channel 4's controversial new comedy talks about missing out on footballing glory, pranking the public, and why he still gets dirty looks for parking in disabled spaces.

The third Comedy Lab pilot of the series is a mockumentary tackling the issue of disability, an issue rather important to me as I suffer from Asperger's syndrome.

Rick and Peter begins with T4 presenter Rick Edwards (whom I'd never heard before) becoming an internet sensation following a YouTube montage clip of him repeatedly mocking the disabled. As a result he's ordered by a Channel 4 executive (Miles Jupp) to attend a school presentation given by Hollyoaks and Cast Offs star Peter Mitchell, who is paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair.

In terms of mockumentaries, it's not the most innovative ever made. Many shows have covered the supposedly nasty (albeit fake) attitudes of a celebrity. And it also features other guest stars like Nicholas Parsons and Giles Cohen in self-deprecating roles, but this idea has been implemented numerous times in shows such as Extras.

However, my main problem with Rick and Peter is actually the relationship between the two. Since Rick mocks the 'mind disabled' rather than the 'leg disabled', surely the character should be made to do something with someone with a more relevant disability?

The problem with that, of course, lies with TV networks' obsession with the visibly disabled. I know that I'm 'mind disabled', but I look normal - and TV doesn't like that. It seems to me that unless you have a disability in which you look different (missing limb, dwarfism, etc.) or require some sort of, for want of a better term, hardware (wheelchair, white stick, hearing aid) you'll not get a look in on TV because they'll be asking: "How can the viewers tell you're disabled?"

In the end all that happens is that we get comparisons with Rain Man, which is inaccurate because he's a savant and most autistic people are not. Either that or it's Tourette's syndrome and you get someone swearing their head off, which again most Tourette's sufferers do not do. If we don't do something odd we don't get a look in, which really frustrates me. In terms of my disability, the only one I can think of appearing in a British sitcom was one of the children in the Jasper Carrott sitcom All About Me, which is widely regarded as being one of the worst sitcoms ever made. Plus that child is somewhat overshadowed by the main narrator of the story, a boy in a wheelchair suffering from cerebral palsy.

I don't think that Rick and Peter will get a full series, but if it does I hope they cover all ground when it comes to disability, not just what you can see.

Peter Mitchell talks about Comedy Lab "Rick and Peter"

The latest Comedy Lab, Rick and Peter, goes out on E4 this Friday.

This delightful and subversive mockumentary bows out tonight with a touching story about feisty dwarf Carrie (Kiruna Stamell), a woman who makes up for in attitude what she lacks in stature. "I'm not disabled, just a bit on the short side," she spits as she embarks on her umpteenth career (as a clown) while burying her feelings for Dan (Peter Mitchell), a wheelchair-bound ex-rugby player. The scripts have eschewed politically correct point-making in favour of bitingly funny comedy drama. Bravo. Another series and quickly, please, before hunky newcomer Mitchell is snapped up by Hollyoaks.

Real risk stalks Cast Offs, Channel 4's magnificent attempt to desentimentalise disability through a drama that places six "differently abled" young people in a fictional reality show in which they must survive for three months on a British island (not Barry). Is it going to be in bad taste, incredible, patronising, wince-making?

The greatest risk may be that, having refused to make its cast heroes, the writers may have made them too unlikeable to care about. Tuesday's opener concentrated on Dan, a sporty young man left paraplegic by a car accident, who is much less prepared than those around him, such as his father and his mates on the wheelchair basketball team, to locate the funny side (to what, exactly?). As Dan, Peter Mitchell produced, however, a performance that was deeply sympathetic. The flashback in which he brought a girl back to his parents' home from the pub - his father silently egged him on from the room next door - was as agonising as the date scene in Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments. Cast Offs has its faults, such as that not enough care has been taken with the reality show element, but it is doing most of what it attempts very well. The only offence caused is that, having taken so many creative risks, Channel 4 has not risked showing it before 11pm.

Cast Offs is a new comedy-drama from Channel 4 about a fictional reality show about six disabled people (played by actors who share their characters' disabilities), voluntarily marooned on a British island. Each episode focuses on a different character, their backstory alternating with scenes from their stranded present; last night belonged to wheelchair-bound Dan, beautifully played by Peter Mitchell. The show-within-a-show conceit so far seems unnecessary: just as the flashback narrative is drawing us in (last night's was full of tough and tender details of life as a newly disabled man), everything stops for stilted banter on the island. Unless this is intended to do something as crass as prove that disabled people can be as dislikable as any non-disabled reality show contestants, it seems pointless. Maybe this strand will reach the standard set by the other element soon - the second episode is tonight, so we shall see.

Eighteen months ago, Channel 4 marooned six disabled people on a remote island to see how well they could survive for 90 days. Not really. These six may be disabled but they are all actors and this subversively comic and rather dark mockumentary-drama shows a rarely seen, unsentimental side of disability.

Tonight the focus is on Dan (Peter Mitchell), a good-looking young Irishman who's in a wheelchair after a recent car accident. His back-story shows him and his desperately well-meaning family still struggling to work out how to deal with this.

One early shot where the crew dump Dan on the island and leave him to wheel himself across the muddy beach and over the sand dunes is typical of the take-no-prisoners style and black humour the writers are aiming for.

If it makes for uncomfortable viewing at times, it's purely intentional - although its rather cruder moments come across as plain clumsy.