Comedian explains why cerebral palsy was never going to hold her back

From The Express

Comedian and writer Rosie Jones has never let cerebral palsy hold her back and, as her brilliant (and controversial) new sitcom in which she plays an unlikely drug mule reveals, disabilities shouldn't be a barrier... even to a life of crime

Comedian and writer Rosie Jones breaking down barriers for people with disabilities .

On June 24, 1990, Andrea Jones went into premature labour at 24 weeks and gave birth to a tiny daughter, who suffered a devastating brain haemorrhage on delivery. She was not expected to live.

At eight months, the baby was finally diagnosed with ataxic cerebral palsy and epilepsy, affecting both her voice and physical movement: today, when walking, she drags one leg behind the other.

Aged four, she announced to her class of primary school mates in Bridlington, east Yorkshire that her condition made her “talk slowly” and “fall over a lot”.

Her classmates probably didn’t suspect that this plucky little girl, Rosie Jones, would grow up to become a highly successful stand-up comedian, writer and actress – all while inspiring others with disabilities.

Rosie, now 34, will reach yet another milestone in her astonishing career at 10pm on Channel 4 tonight. Pushers is a six-part sitcom co-written by and starring Rosie, and tells the story of a disabled woman who turns, reluctantly at first, to supplying cocaine to the residents of a run-down housing estate.

Her character, Emily, is working as an unpaid volunteer at a local charity, keeping body and soul together via state benefits.

When the time comes for her case to be reviewed by the Department for Work and Pensions, she ill-advisedly tells the truth.

“Do you dribble?” asks the government employee. She says she doesn’t. “Do you soil yourself?” “No.” And so on. Until her benefits are summarily removed.

Then Emily bumps into local drug dealer Ewen (a spot-on Ryan McParland), a boy who was in her class at school. He’s far from being the sharpest tool in the box, a young man who, when he spots a sign for speed bumps, sees it as an invitation and puts his foot on the accelerator, resulting in the occasional bloody nose.

Emily, reasons Ewen, would be perfect for his drug dealing activities. “You’re a lonely, boring, single woman hurtling towards middle age,” he says, “you’re disabled, you’re invisible, you’re nuffink!”

“You’ve got a real way with words,” replies Emily, all irony lost on the hapless Ewen. But he’s right, of course: no one is going to suspect Emily of being a drug mule.

Pushers is far from comfortable viewing, frequently making the viewer wince but often also, simultaneously, laugh out loud. Littered with four-letter words, it is nonetheless very funny, drawing from the same vein of dark humour that made Ricky Gervais’s After Life such essential viewing.

At a private screening of the first two episodes in central London last week, Rosie, dressed in emerald green satin jumpsuit and high-heeled ankle boots, was on sparkling form. Her parents, Rob and Andrea, were in the front row, beaming with pride.

“You did a good job, you two,” their daughter tells them at one point. She’s not wrong – but the path to her success hasn’t half been littered with hurdles.

To this day, she’s subject to abuse from trolls. When she was on Taskmaster last year, she attracted a steady deluge of vile comments. One told Rosie she ought to be “put in a cage”. Others sent messages too vile to be mentioned here.

The rational part of her brain tells her the trolls are the ones with the problem. Even so, she found it necessary to have therapy after this soul-destroying experience. “Abuse is so isolating,” she says, “so damaging.”

By their very definition, the trolls are also cowards, hiding behind their anonymity. What would she say if she could talk to any of them eye-to-eye?

“I’d tell them my mission in life would be to make them happy because happy people don’t say unkind things.”

Even now, when she leaves her flat in London, bought from the proceeds of appearing on a string of panel shows like 8 Out of 10 Cats, The Last Leg, Would I Lie to You? and so on, she always wears earphones.

“It’s so I can listen to Steps,” she jokes. But, in reality, it’s to filter out the abuse too often directed at her.

She’s now a recognisably successful comedian who’s also appeared on Casualty and Call the Midwife, but taxi drivers still sometimes refuse to take her, confusing her involuntary stumbling for drunkenness.

So Rosie, far from being cowed, is on a one-woman mission to re-educate the public. Everyone knows what racism and sexism mean, she points out. “But who can define ableism? Put simply, it’s prejudice against disabled people.”

Why doesn’t she report abusers to the police? “Because,” she says, sadly, “I don’t honestly know how seriously it would be taken.” She remains something of a rarity. “People with disabilities who truly have a platform to speak out on these topics are few and far between.”

It means that she’s forced to be an activist. “I don’t think my white, non-disabled male comedian colleagues are expected to be outspoken or political.

“Not that I’m setting myself up as a representative of all disabled people. I can only speak for myself and my own experience.”

But outspoken she undoubtedly is. She has harsh words for the current government. “It started with the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance, targeting the most vulnerable people in society.”

When she and co-writer Peter Fellows first started developing Pushers, the Tories were in power. Then Labour won a landslide victory last summer. “We both briefly questioned the satirical content of the sitcom,” she continues. “Would it be a little bit irrelevant with the lovely, brilliant, inclusive, disabled-friendly Labour government? Ha!

“It’s not played out that way. Talking about benefits and how poorly this country treats the disabled is more relevant than ever. Shame on us for thinking the current Government would treat us any better than the last lot.”

It’s no accident that almost all the main characters in Pushers have some sort of disability.

“I get so frustrated when I watch a TV show and they have one disabled character in it,” says Rosie. “That isn’t an accurate representation of the world. More than 20% of the population has some form of disability, physical or mental.

“I hope people watching Pushers quickly forget that the majority of the characters are disabled. You’re just watching good characters telling funny stories. When I was growing up, Francesca Martinez who also has cerebral palsy was in Grange Hill but I didn’t see anyone else who was like me.”

But it’s not enough just to speak out.

A couple of months ago, she launched the Rosie Jones Foundation which will focus on two goals: connecting people with cerebral palsy to tailored healthcare, as well as creating events where they can meet each other for peer support.

“It’s exhausting having to enter a world on a daily basis that isn’t set up for you. You can never turn it off.

“I don’t get to decide that, when I leave the house today, I don’t fancy being stared at or having to make excuses for myself. But I don’t have a choice. It wasn’t until therapy in my 30s that I realised humour was my coping mechanism, my survival mode.

“I also slowly realised that wasn’t for my benefit; that was for everyone else so they would feel comfortable around me and my disability.”

The Foundation’s particular focus will be on the young, she says. “We want to give them an opportunity to meet each other.”

The aim is to organise skills workshops and hold events all round the country, with locations tied to Rosie’s stand-up tours.

On top of all this, making people laugh, she thinks, will help break down barriers. She’s nothing if not resilient.

Quite early on in her career, she realised that her slower vocal delivery meant that audiences guessed the punchline before she got to the end of the joke.

“So, it made me more inventive, forced me to come up with something unexpected.”

There is one more strand to Rosie Jones’s sometimes challenging life.

She’s a lesbian. “I’m not apologising for that. But I don’t like that word. I prefer to call myself gay.” At school, she remembers having a crush on Rachel from Friends but thought this might be just a passing phase.

“I grew up in Yorkshire in the 1990s. For ages, I’d tell myself I wasn’t gay. I had long hair. I wore dresses. I wasn’t angry. I didn’t look like a PE teacher.

But it was no good. As she entered her 20s, she knew she fancied other women. She finally started dating in her 30s.

“But initially I thought, ‘I can’t be the gay one because I’m already the disabled one. I can’t tick two boxes’.” Pause. “As a matter of fact,” adds the unclassifiable Rosie Jones, eyes twinkling, “it takes me long enough to tick even one box.”

Pushers starts on Channel 4 tonight at 10pm