Jones has been writing and crafting her six-part Channel 4 show since 2018, when the Conservatives were eight years into power and austerity. She worried that when she finally released Pushers and Labour was in charge, her show would no longer be making a point that was needed.
“I thought, surely when it comes out in June 2025, nearly a year into a Labour government, we would be in a utopia where disabled people are cared for, listened to. Our little show wouldn’t be relevant any more. That didn’t play out like we thought. Unfortunately, our show is more relevant than ever.”
Growing up in the 90s, Jones adored sitcoms like Dinnerladies and The Royle Family, and having her own felt like the “tip of the mountain”. While her aim is to give audiences a laugh, the show also deals with important issues for the disability community and is deeply personal to Jones. First she wants to be clear that she has never turned to drug dealing. But she is one of many disabled people who has had their benefits cut. She has also felt degraded, patronised and humiliated as a disabled woman with cerebral palsy.
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“People see a disabled person, and they feel sorry for them. They patronise them. They underestimate them. Even now, if a disabled person is represented on TV, they are normally vulnerable, a victim, one dimensional, they cannot care for themselves. And that’s not an accurate representation of not only my life but millions of disabled people out there,” Jones says.
Jones was adamant that Pushers would represent disabled people in a funny, light-hearted, flawed, three-dimensional way. She says it would have been easy to put herself as the only disabled character in a world full of white, non-disabled people.
“I’m not interested in that. That isn’t a world I’m familiar with. The world I know and love is full of rich, diverse, wonderful people, and I really wanted to depict that in my show.”
She created a vibrant cast of characters – who make up her drug gang – played by a range of actors with disabilities. And she prioritised making the set accessible and inclusive, with an access coordinator on set to support both cast and crew.
A quarter of the UK population is disabled, but that proportion is rarely represented on screen. Jones is used to being the only disabled person on a set. “It was so refreshing not to be alone,” she says.
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Jones says that around five years ago she would have been adamant she could not speak for or represent disabled people, and that’s still true to an extent. She can only speak about what it’s like to be a 34-year-old comedian with cerebral palsy called Rosie Jones.
But she is also acutely aware she is one of few disabled people on mainstream TV and in comedy – and that gives her a voice and power that many disabled people do not have. Pushers, beyond being a wacky comedy, is an opportunity to start a conversation.
“The takeaway is about disability, about the state right now, about what it is like to be a working-class disabled person in the UK in 2025,” Jones says.
The cast of Pushers: Trevor Dwyer-Lynch, Libby Mai, Rhiannon Clements, Ryan McParland, Ruben Reuter, Rosie Jones, Lynn Hunter and Jon Furlong. Image: Channel 4/ James Stack
It is an experience she knows well. Jones started claiming disability benefits when she was 16 in 2006. There is no cure for her cerebral palsy and she will never get better, so she thought she would never have to be assessed for benefits again.
But it didn’t happen like that. The benefit she was on then, disability living allowance, was replaced with the personal independence payment (PIP) in 2013.
“I was reassessed, and they downgraded me after meeting me at my house for 10 minutes, watching me walk eight steps, then deeming me to be more mobile than I actually am,” Jones explains. “It’s humiliating, degrading and extremely patronising. In the situations I’ve been in, it’s always been a non-disabled assessment officer with no humility.
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“I’m not an angry person, but I found myself thinking: ‘How can you know what it’s like for me, a disabled person, to enter a world every day that makes me feel unwelcome and to go into a society that isn’t set up for people like me?’ The fact that a non-disabled stranger has 10 minutes to judge your life and what you need is wildly inappropriate.”
This is familiar to many disabled people, hundreds of whom have written to Big Issue to share their experiences of having their benefits removed. Jones considers herself “one of the lucky ones”.
“I’m in an incredibly privileged position in that, even though my benefits were cut, I now find myself in a job, a career, a situation where my salary can pick up the slack.
“The side note is that I need to say yes to more gigs, more jobs, because I’m making up for that gap. And because of my disability, I get more tired, more exhausted on a day-to-day basis.”
Jones is a regular face on our TV screens, whether as a panellist on comedy shows like The Last Leg and 8 Out of 10 Cats or acting in episodes of Casualty or Call the Midwife. She’s written an episode of Sex Education and authored children’s book series The Amazing Edie Eckhart and Moving on Up.
As Pushers is about to air, Jones is set to tour the UK, promising a “raucous, swear-filled romp” about gravy, being single and boobs “in a lovely gravy, single, titty mess”.
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If that wasn’t enough, she’s also launched her own charity this year, the Rosie Jones Foundation, which will support adults with cerebral palsy with their mental health. She is wearing the foundation’s logo on her t-shirt as we speak.
“I represent them all day every day,” Jones says. “It’s the proudest thing I’ve ever done. From a young age, I’ve been aware that the world is much bigger than me, and when I found myself in the position where I had the time, money and platform to do good, I wanted to do it.”
Jones feels support “drops off a cliff” when people with cerebral palsy turn 18. Although there are “very good, small cerebral palsy charities”, she could not find one supporting adults with their mental health. So she set up the Rosie Jones Foundation, with a mission “to create a world in which no person with cerebral palsy feels unheard or alone”.
“I have had mental health struggles,” Jones admits. “Entering a world every day that makes you feel, time and time again like you’re not welcome is incredibly damaging. I’ve been lucky enough to get help, to go to therapy, and that is an ongoing journey. That isn’t the case for a lot of disabled people.
“The Rosie Jones Foundation is making a road to sort that out. The aim is to make the world a better place.”
Pushers starts on 19 June on Channel 4.
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