Full series of Hospital People ordered

Inept hospital DJ Ivan Brackenbury has been given his own BBC One series, following a successful pilot.

Hospital People also features Brackenbury's creator Tom Binns as a number of other characters, including his dodgy psychic Ian D Montfort reimagined as a spiritualist porter, ambitious hospital manager Susan Mitchell, overenthusiastic Scouse priest Father Kenny and hypochondriac patient Terry Boyle.

The pilot aired in February as part of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse strand, which also featured Craig Cash's Broken Biscuits and the television adaptation of Jack Docherty's Radio 4 series Start/Stop.

Made by Cuckoo and People Just Do Nothing creators Roughcut, the pilot was co-written by Binns with Matt Morgan and co-starred Harki Bhambra, Liz Kingsman, Mandeep Dhillon, Aidey Pugh and Maggie McCarthy.

Speaking at the time of the pilot's commission, executive producer Ash Atalla of Roughcut said: ‘The words "hospital" and "funny" are rarely seen together but for 30 minutes at least we hope to change that. Roughcut are delighted to be working under the spotlight of BBC One, the biggest comedy stage of them all.’

Binns was nominated as Brackenbury for the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2007 and regularly performs on the circuit as the DJ and D Montfort.

Here is Chortle's review of the pilot.

-by Jay Richardson

Published: 7 Oct 2016