Jo Brand's favourite TV

Newsnight | Pulling | Homeland | Broadchurch | My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
jo brand
Brand loyalty: Jo's TV-watching habits. Photograph: Rex Features Rex Features/Rex Features

Unmissable show?

Newsnight. It gives people enough time to hang themselves. I have delighted in Paxman for years. I like the barkiness of Paxman.

Bring back ...

I'd like to see Pulling brought back. It was absolutely revolutionary in showing women as these horrible, pissed, manipulative characters, who just have a laugh and get on as mates. They're making a US remake. I'm not sure "pulling" is a term used in America, though.

On the DVR?

I want to watch Homeland, but I haven't got around to it. I would have watched Broadchurch, but I heard who the murderer was on the radio. Pissed off about that.

TV turn-off?

I'm not keen on My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I find it prurient and exploitative. A lot of people are watching this and going, "God, look at those chavs." Chavs is one of my most hated words. Those shows pander to individuals who want to put people down, because of their culture or their poverty.

Come Dine With Me lineup?

Harry Potter. He's a really lovely character. Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist, who basically wrote about stuff which didn't appear until the 20th century. Betty Smith, the American jazz singer who was just appallingly behaved! She was drunk and liked fighting, and someone annoyed her at a party once so she stabbed them. You need a hellraiser at a dinner party. And I'd like to settle the dispute about who Shakespeare was, so whoever he was, I'd like to have him there.

Pitch us a TV show ...

I'd like a TV show where you could force very powerful people to account for their actions, to a panel of judges. So I'd like Paxman, Helena Kennedy and then a comedian who's very intelligent, Frank Skinner, to balance it out. It would be Putin on week one, Assad on week two. The ideal would be that you could arrest them at the end. Peter Tatchell could do some sort of citizen's arrest. It's Leveson crossed with Big Brother!

Catch Jo Brand's Great Wall of Comedy, 16 Jun, 7.30pm, Gold