Jo Brand's Getting On set for third series

Jo Brand's Getting On set for third series (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Jo Brand's comedy drama Getting On - which won her a top award at the TV Baftas - is to return for a further series. BBC bosses have recommissioned the show set in an NHS geriatric ward for a third run on BBC4. Jo, who co-writes and stars in the series alongside Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, took the best female comedy performance prize at the Baftas on Sunday, and hit out at critics who have suggested she could not act. The series is directed by Peter Capaldi, best known to TV audiences for his role as foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It. BBC4 controller Richard Klein said: "I am delighted that Getting On will be coming back for a third run. "Jo Brand's Bafta yesterday only confirms just what a wonderfully warm, witty and insightful comedy this is - an all-female star cast featuring ladies of a certain age dealing with all the absurdities and realities that is the NHS, and all done in a manner guaranteed to make you laugh out loud." Jo picked up a prize for best comedy writer for the series - along with her co-writers Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan - at the Royal Television Society Awards in March. On Sunday the comic picked up her Bafta and told guests at the ceremony: "I'm flabbergasted, completely, because over the years I have been so slagged off for my acting ability by the critics." Cheryl Taylor, controller of comedy commissioning at the BBC said: "Fans will be delighted to hear that the show has been recommissioned for BBC4."

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.