Tim Renkow

Last week saw the return of another, quite different disability-centred show: Jerk, the four-part, UK-based BBC black comedy in which Tim (US comedian Tim Renkow, who has cerebral palsy) relishes exploiting his disability.

Co-created with Shaun Pye (whose other disability comedy, There She Goes, stars David Tennant and Jessica Hynes) and Stu Richards, the second series opened with the return of the previously deported Tim, clanking his walker through UK customs, jeering: "It's so easy to get into this country." After reuniting with his uncaring care worker, Ruth (Sharon Rooney), and uncool friend Idris (Rob Madin), Tim goes to college and starts identifying as able-bodied, to the scorn of Ruth: "If you really are able-bodied, you have no excuse for that smell."

If anything, Jerk has sharpened up from the first series, conjuring wickedly unsentimental commentaries on disability and public hypocrisy worthy of Larry David: Tim frightening children; Tim being "exorcised" by an evangelical preacher. As Tim's mum, Lorraine Bracco (yes, that Lorraine Bracco from Goodfellas and The Sopranos) once again steals scenes with throwaway caustic asides: "Don't be getting anyone pregnant, OK, because they'll come out like you." Far from being "message-comedy", Jerk smashes and subverts disability taboos just for the sheer hell of it.

TV Review: Jerk, BBC Three/BBC One

I don't think I'd want to be friends with the main character Tim in Jerk.

Jerk review

Politically incorrect and sick, and I loved it.

Jerk review

There's the core of a great idea here, poking fun at the sort of people who panic when they meet anyone with a serious disability. But a subject so sensitive needs clever, imaginative writing - not pratfalls and sight gags about walking frames.

Jerk Series 2 review

Tim Renkow's Jerk is a clear example that anything's up for mockery, just as long as it's done with clear, uncruel intention.

Jerk Series 2 review

Tim Renkow is back as a sociopathic puppeteer with cerebral palsy - who now identifies as able-bodied - in this superbly awkward comedy about society's discomfort with disability.

Jerk, BBC One, review

It's hard not to admire Tim Renkow's commitment to being as dark as possible as Tim, a man with cerebral palsy who also happens to be a cynical narcissist.

Jerk Series 2 review

Tim Renkow's sitcom about a disabled character is bags of fun and can get away with things that others might not dare attempt.

Tim Renkow on what he finds the funniest

"The Hitchhiker's Guide made me crash my wheelchair into a ditch."

Tim Renkow in Jerk: turning uneasiness into awkwardness

He's a jerk and it's fine not to like him. The latest series of Jerk, starring the stand-up comedian and actor Tim Renkow begins this week, and is based on a heightened version of his own experience of living with cerebral palsy.

It's a deliberately unsettling and subversive comedy, which aims to turn other people's uneasiness about his character into pure awkwardness. We spoke to him about the show.