Standup comedian Tim Renkow’s blacker-than-black comedy Jerk is upping its game for its third series. The sitcom, about a man called Tim who has cerebral palsy and is a self-described terrible person, deserves a bigger audience. It has been given more episodes, moving from four guest stars per series to six – in the form of Sally Phillips, James Norton and Big Zuu, which should help it to gain the recognition it deserves.
Renkow, who co-writes with Shaun Pye (There She Goes, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret) has come up with the sort of comedy that wants you to laugh and dares you to laugh, at the same time. This is a show that began, in 2019, with the fictional Tim pretending to wet himself in a cafe to embarrass a fellow customer for using the disabled toilet. This turned out to be a relatively gentle start. The first series saw Tim testing whether, as a disabled employee, he was “unsackable”, what happens when you pose as an asylum-seeker for free food, and the surprise discovery of Nazi relatives. The second kept it breezy with methadone, going to the gym and organised religion.
