Leftie comics like Jo Brand on new ITV DNA show are a special horror – pillars of woke masquerading as ‘alternative'

The Sun

19-06-2025

TELEVISION is filled with all sorts of human horrors.
In my experience, the worst of the lot, though, are comedians, who tend to be nasty, morose, selfish, short- tempered, needy, back-biting, point-scoring egomaniacs.
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There are some honourable exceptions, obviously.
The real nightmares, however, are the left-wing stand-ups who still see themselves as 'alternative' but are ­actually pillars of TV 's woke, middle-class establishment and confuse their foul-mouthed political tirades and posturing with A) Compassion and B) Comedy.
Jo Brand and Julian Clary are hardly the worst of them, but they'll have to do because they've just entered the wow zone on DNA Journey, an ITV rip-off which operates in much the same way as BBC One's Who Do You Think You Are?
Only significant differences, in fact, are the ITV celebs appear in tandem and finish with an underwhelming reveal where a sweet, old woman from County Down called Gabrielle Rush suddenly had to come to terms with the news she was Jo Brand's second cousin (not nearly enough times removed).
Poverty porn
Before we arrived at that dead end, though, the pair had to lay out their dreams for the Journey with the phrase 'shooting for the moon' not even coming close to covering this pair's fantasies.
Because his great-grandfather was Irish, 'where all the comedy comes from,' Julian hoped he might be related to Oscar Wilde, while Jo wanted to find someone caring as she fancies herself as 'one of those people that wants to make things better for people'.
Unless, of course, you're one of those people Jo disagrees with politically, when she wants to spray you with battery acid.
In the event?
Conveniently, Julian did indeed discover a distant ancestor had once taken a picture of Oscar Wilde, and he also learned he had a great grandfather (x2) who, according to a London historian, 'was a policeman who'd served under Inspector ­Rimmer and Inspector Lecoq.'
Here they also established a link to Jack the Ripper ­(Julian's GGx2 hadn't nicked him) that was almost as vague as the one they established to the serial killer during Alex Brooker's DNA Journey and Gemma Collins' Who Do You Think You Are?
Gavin & Stacey star Alison Steadman breaks down in tears at life-changing discovery on DNA Journey
For the truth is, of course, if they are desperate enough, ancestral shows can link everyone who lived in late 19th-century London to Jack the Ripper, just as lazily as they can link almost everyone with an Irish relative to the potato famine.
In Jo's case, though, it was another of their obsessions. Poverty porn.
Her great-grandfather, it transpired, had risen from the depths of a cholera-infested London hellhole to become a first-class dining car attendant on the railways, who rose to 'the very top of his profession'.
A triumph of the human spirit that reminded Jo of someone else. Any guesses?
'I always thought that a bit about myself and comedy, because the reality was an Oxbridge education was more of a ticket to get on at the BBC. I had to do it all by myself.'
You can see why a middle-class, home counties, grammar school girl like Jo wants to play the prole, obviously.
In all of human history, though, there can't be many people as lucky and privileged as Jo Brand and Julian Clary, who may well have been inconvenienced by the fact they weren't nearly as funny as Oxbridge boys like Not The Nine O'Clock News and Python, at the start of their careers, but quickly became part of comedy's new right-on establishment and have both screwed a 40-year living out of TV on little more than innuendo and mildly amusing observations about cake.
There's no chance of getting rid of them now either. They're fixtures.
So I hope TV takes a slightly more ruthless approach with genealogy shows, which have been nothing but a series of let-downs since WDYTYA discovered in 2016 that Danny Dyer was heir to the throne, and rarely leave you with anything more than one fact you'll remember beyond the closing credits, as was demonstrated last night.
'Analysis has shown Jo Brand is 37 per cent Irish.'
And still 63 per cent stout.
GAME'S UP FOR PADDY
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AFTER a month of spin-off shows and Sam Thompson 's bellowing theatrics, I'd been fully expecting to hate every moment of Soccer Aid 's England versus a World XI charity game, on Sunday night.
Come the big day, however, something strange happened.
England manager Tyson Fury started swearing a lot, for starters. Then, with the World XI trailing 3-0, Carlos Tevez suddenly started playing like the Golden Boot was at stake while the great Leonardo Bonucci forgot himself entirely and nearly put Lioness Steph Houghton in traction with the most brutally executed sliding tackle you've seen all season.
Before you knew it, the score was 4-4 and the game was heading to the time-lengthening penalty shoot-out sponsors Unicef had probably been craving all night.
Right up until the moment that foghorning oaf Big Zuu barrelled in from nowhere to stick an 83rd minute winner inside England goalkeeper Paddy McGuinness 's near post.
At which point, Zuu set off on the wildest goal celebrations since Marco Tardelli's 'Scream for Italy' at the 1982 World Cup final and I could contain myself no longer and laughed until it nearly hurt.
Throughout it all, of course, commentator Sam Matterface and the other ITV worthies insisted the 'most important and amazing' thing here was the £15million raised for charity, but they couldn't have been much more wrong.
Via trial and a lot of funny errors, Soccer Aid had actually discovered something Paddy McGuinness does more disastrously than host A Question Of Sport. And that's truly amazing.
SPEAKING entirely for herself at the Queen's Club tennis tournament, BBC's Anne Keothavong: 'You know what you're going to get with Tatjana Maria, low balls below the knees and you've got to get under them.'
UNEXPECTED MORONS IN THE BAGGING AREA
THE Finish Line, Roman Kemp: 'Got To Be Certain was an Eighties hit for which Aussie pop star?'
Paul: ' Ozzy Osbourne. '
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: 'Beginning in 1756, in what year did the Seven Years War end?'
Pete: '1649.'
And Tipping Point for Soccer Aid, Ben Shephard: 'Billy and Nanny are names commonly given to the adult male and female of which farm animal?'
Chris Hughes: 'Pig.'
RANDOM TV IRRITATIONS
THE parents of Love Island's Blu naming their son after a toilet freshener.
ITN's Robert Peston trying to dress like a Mafia hitman at the G7 summit.
EastEnders expecting the sort of herograms for Joel's toxic ­masculinity storyline it'll only ever get when it has the balls to do a Pakistani grooming gang plot (ie. never).
And Love Island reaching the point of no return, on ­Saturday night's show, when Irish Megan, announced 'I need to shave my minge,' which was the cue for me to floss my wisdom teeth and switch off for ever.
TV GOLD
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THE Contestant episode of BBC4's Storyville detailing the exact moment TV lost its ­conscience forever.
Matthew Goode's starring role as DCI Carl Morck on ­Netflix's Dept Q.
Broadcasting hero Nick ­Ferrari eating the Government's Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Emma Reynolds, for breakfast, on LBC.
Channel 4 's Night Coppers remaining eternally good-humoured in the face of feral Britain.
And Neil Forsyth's The Gold, on BBC One, producing memorable performances from Joshua McGuire (Douglas Baxter), Tom Cullen, (John Palmer) and Sam Spruell as Charlie Miller who, contrary to every report I've seen, wasn't a made-up character at all but a nom de plume for a very real and very terrifying South ­London gangster called John Fleming.
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: 'Arseblog.com is a website mainly ­dedicated to what football. . .'
'Team?'
Oh.
LOOKALIKE OF THE WEEK
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THIS week's winner is MI5's Partick ­Thistle-supporting Director General Ken McCallum and Sue Perkins.
Emailed in by Francis Harvey.
PAUL MERSON: 'The top four will be Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Newcastle and Forest.'
Sue Smith: 'Sometimes you don't remember memories.'
And Rio Ferdinand: 'When things get uncomfortable Inter Milan are always ­comfortable.'
(Compiled by Graham Wray)