Jo Brand

"Can we just stop there and get used to that layer?" says nurse Kim Wilde (Jo Brand) as she gingerly picks at the stinking garments worn by an as yet unidentified new admission to geriatric ward B4. Returning for a second series, Getting On remains about as far removed from conventional sitcoms as it's possible to get. Which, as the festering old lady is shunted around the hospital because the staff don't really want to deal with her and anyway they're preoccupied with their own personal psycho-dramas, is precisely why it's required viewing. Laugh-out-loud funny, tears-to-your-eyes sad. Marvellous.

Jo Brand's deliciously dark comedy returns for another series centred around a geriatric ward, and it's a healthy antidote to the soapy mania in Holby City and Casualty. There is a very grim streak of humour here, and as Jo used to work as a psychiatric nurse, you can probably assume what happens here is closer to the truth than you might like to imagine. Bleak, but also very funny.

Three episodes were simply not enough for the first series of Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine's beautifully observed black comedy set in a NHS geriatric ward. Now it's back with a series that's twice as long, opening with the three once again running around straitjacketed by pointless protocol as a pongy homeless woman is wheeled through the doors of B4.

As an antidote to the glamour, heroics and sexual intrigue of Holby City, Getting On's black hospital humour is as startling as a cold bed pan.

Fans who clamoured for more of this hospital sitcom after the first mini-dose of just three episodes will be delighted to know it's back for six more weeks of agonising mirth.

Tonight opens with a typical patient dilemma for Nurse Kim Wilde and Sister Flixter (Jo Brand and Joanna Scanlan). An unidentified woman has been brought in who, in medical terms, can only be described as a stinky old tramp. Or, as the briskly ineffectual Dr Moore (Vicki Pepperdine) describes her condition: "Odour Plus, Plus".

Dr Moore is also eager to show her terrifyingly gormless student doctors the designs for the gleaming new hospital wing - complete with sculptures by Antony Gormley - that will make not one scrap of difference to the suffering of the patients and their families - or, indeed, any of the staff.

While Holby's eye-liner budget alone would probably pay a nurse's salary for a year, Getting On's depiction of life on ward B4 is so grimly realistic that you feel you should keep a bottle of anti-bacterial hand-wash next to the remote.

What it's doing languishing in a sideroom on BBC4 while Reggie Perrin basks in the private-ward comfort of BBC1 is frankly a mystery.

Jo Brand's Getting On

"It's not a glamorous central London hospital. We wanted to do the antidote to Holby City where everyone's got so much make-up on and they do nursing care for twenty seconds and then they go and have an affair with the surgeon, or a patient comes in that they fancy."

Jo Brand and Peter Capaldi Interview

Director Peter Capaldi and star Jo Brand tell Adam Sweeting how their superb hospital sitcom Getting On sees the funny side of death.

Getting On: Series 2 Episode 1 review

This BBC Two comedy series, co-written by former nurse Jo Brand, is jet black satire that will probably be too much for some tastes.

Lunch with Mariella: Jo Brand

A mischievous conversation with the comedian covers everything from accepting lifts from strangers to the joys of peanut butter sandwiches.

An interview with Jo Brand

She's the left-wing feminist comic who thinks Jimmy Carr is a nice bloke ... would the real Jo Brand come forward.

You may recognise Rhod from his various panel show appearances, but here the Welsh comedian hosts his own show in which he answers some of the public's burning questions alongside Lloyd Langford - his flatmate - and Greg Davies, star of The Inbetweeners. This week the trio are joined by Jo Brand, Amanda Byram and Kate Silverton, but despite such a huge cast of guests, Gilbert's laconic style shines through.