Getting On

As the second episode of this tart little anti-comedy begins, inept doctor Pippa (Vicki Pepperdine) is lost in a pod of isolation. Her husband has left her and her precious female genitalia project is in jeopardy.

Poor, emotionally illiterate Pippa; she is dismissive of everyone while being hollow with loneliness. Her colleagues Den and Kim (Joanna Scanlan and Jo Brand) laugh behind her back as they try to kick holes in the thick walls of NHS bureaucracy. For Den, this means changing her plans now she knows that pregnant staff members are entitled to a free fridge for expressed breast milk.

Vicki Pepperdine's fantastically annoying consultant Pippa continues to steal the show in Jo Brand's tragicomic sitcom. Whether she's lusting pathetically after Tobias Menzies's dashing database man or referring to groups as 'gents' regardless of their gender make-up, she leaves impenetrable jargon, small-scale chaos and widely felt irritation in her wake. Nor does Kim (Brand) reap the benefits of lending Den (Joanna Scanlon) a sympathetic ear when the latter starts to play the pregnancy card at ever opportunity. Hilary, meanwhile, is still lurking like a bad smell, even by the standards of ward whiffery in your average hospital. It's another effortlessly underplayed but very telling slice of NHS life: incisive and making its points at the same time as making us laugh - not an easy trick to pull off.

Dr Pippa Moore (Vicki Pepperdine) continues to attempt to breeze through her divorce in this charmingly understated hospital comedy tonight. Meanwhile, pregnant nurse Den Flixter (Joanna Scanlan) sharply adjusts her plans to resign when she discovers the benefits she's entitled to and Kim Wilde (Jo Brand) learns that putting herself through medical school will be no easy task.

Probably the best comedy drama currently on television, the third series of Getting On is still getting the laughs, although there's been quite a few changes.

For starters, the staff have been transferred to a new, brighter hospital. But this hasn't stopped Nurse Kim Wilde (Jo Brand), Sister Den Flixter (Joanna Scanlan) and Dr. Pippa Moore (Vicki Pepperdine) each - in their own way - trying to cope with their workload and each other. Their former matron, Hilary Loftus (Ricky Grover), has also now taken a consultancy role in the hospital, meaning he's just background noise - though he could have a say in who the hospital keeps as staff...

Most of the laughs come from the relationships between the three lead characters, helped along by solid acting and some cracking writing. Pippa had the best scenes in this opening episode, especially when chatting to some student doctors in the hope that they'd be interested in her latest medical project: an examination of "post-65 vulvas". Wonderfully funny, if slightly icky.

The drama is also coming off well, especially between Den and Hilary. This episode sees the staff going for medical check-ups, which sees Den discovering something shocking. I'll say no more.

Getting On's one of the best shows around, but as it is hidden away on BBC Four it's not given as big a profile as other shows. Maybe it might be time for a move to BBC Two?

Jo Brand's superlative Getting On returned for a third series. Thanks to its vérité stylings and politically inflected setting, this barely-comedy set in the NHS backwaters has oft been compared with The Thick of It, while shamefully acquiring nothing like its profile. Meanwhile, their fundamental differences are encapsulated in their respective main characters' voices: Peter Capaldi's barbaric bark and Brand's low-level drone.

Anyway, last week's opener had the central trio - Brand's nurse, Joanna Scanlan's matron, and Vicki Pepperdine's fabulously callous doctor - in a new-fangled ward but struggling with the usual mix of bureaucratic absurdities and each other. That it successfully interwove a distressing scene of an old woman having a panic attack and the line "I think you would have enjoyed getting your teeth into my vaginal atrophy" tells you all you need to know about the show's rare, nay American, sophistication.

Jo Brand: 'I'd like to be a national disgrace'

Jo Brand, whose routines used to have men in the audience crossing their legs in fear, has mellowed somewhat. Perhaps it's all the knitting.

Harriet Walker on television: Getting On, BBC4

Getting On gives me the spine-shivering feeling that I might be viewing terrifying reality.

Review: Sick humour runs riot as Jo Brand & co returned

Getting On was back with a heady mix of Jo Brand and vaginal atrophy and although its the comedic equivalent of picking a scab, it's funny enough to get away with it.

Last night's viewing: Getting On, BBC4

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to explain why Getting On is so good. If you don't like it - and the mere existence of comedies such as Not Going Out and Me and Mrs Jones suggests there must be people who prefer their sitcoms less subtle - then it's hard to know where to start exactly.

Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan - Terri in The Thick Of It - are back on duty for a third series of the deliciously downbeat hospital comedy. With an eye for detail that packs a hypodermic punch, it's a bleakly comic picture of an NHS bedevilled by jargon and box-ticking, with 'cultural diversity cupcakes' the least of Nurse Kim and Sister Den's mounting problems. If you didn't laugh you'd cry.