Jerk

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.

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How cerebral palsy became TV comedy gold

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Transcript: this disabled comedian is a Jerk

This is a full transcript of "This disabled comedian is a Jerk" as first broadcast on 15 March 2019 and presented by Kate Monaghan and Simon Minty.

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Jerk review

It's fairly dark comedy but also extremely likeable, and Renkow makes for a great lead as though it can't be denied that his character can be a bit of jerk (and he clearly wouldn't want anyone to think differently), his perspective on existence is nearly always enormously funny.

Tim Renkow: the shameless star of sitcom Jerk

Tim Renkow talks about the joys of making people feel awkward, how to spot a pity laugh - and why he had to give bad etiquette lessons to Sopranos shrink Lorraine Bracco.

In episode one, he [Tim] lands a job at a greetings card company and - suspecting he only has it because he ticks the correct victimhood boxes - he behaves appallingly, as though he were a superhero whose special power is that he is completely unsackable.

Renkow is likeable, the set-up is distinctive, and there are more than enough funny moments to keep you watching. Even so, I wish it had pushed its satirical takedown of our victimhood culture - what the US black conservative activist Candace Owens calls the 'oppression Olympics' - a bit more mercilessly. As it is, you do feel at times as though it's not a show designed to be watched on its merits, but rather as a state-approved lesson in how to empathise with the marginalised.