When Brand began her career in comedy, she used the stage name the "Sea Monster". She was part of the British alternative comedy movement, working in London alternative comedy clubs in the mid-1980s, and appearing initially on the Saturday Live television show. She shared a flat with fellow comic and comedy club owner Ivor Dembina.[12]
Brand's early style involved her delivering jokes in a bored monotone, one line at a time, with pauses in between. It drew heavily from pop culture and the media, with many jokes containing references to celebrities and public figures. Brand has said that she drank heavily before her first gig, was heckled throughout, and received no applause at the end of the set.[5] Her Doc Marten boots, large size and short hair led to false rumours that she was a lesbian.[13]
In 2007, Brand narrated Laughter & Tears: The Les Dawson Story, a documentary tribute to Les Dawson, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in October 2007.
Brand wrote a feature-film adaptation of her novel The More You Ignore Me. The film was released in 2018.[14]
Television
In 1993, Brand became a resident panellist, along with Tony Hawks, on BBC monologue show The Brain Drain. Her transition into mainstream television continued when she starred in her own series on Channel 4, Jo Brand Through the Cakehole, co-written with comedy writer Jim Miller, who was already her main stand-up writer. Brand has had several solo television series, and presented shows such as Jo Brand's Commercial Breakdown. She had a cameo appearance in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous entitled "New Best Friend" (1994), and also appeared on Star Spell, a spin-off from Hard Spell in 2004.
Her television success continued with guest appearances on shows such as Have I Got News for You and QI, to the extent where she became the most frequently appearing guest on the latter, appearing in a total of 34 episodes. As a fan of Countdown, Brand achieved an ambition when she was invited to appear in the show's "Dictionary Corner" as the celebrity guest. She later became a friend of the host, Richard Whiteley, and after his death in 2005 attended his memorial service at York Minster. She has appeared on Countdown as a Dictionary Corner guest 88 times.[15]
On 25 March 2007, Brand appeared on Play It Again, where she was required to learn how to play the organ in just four months. This was in preparation to perform Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for an audience of 8,000 people at London's Royal Albert Hall on the second largest pipe organ in the United Kingdom. In order to practise her performance, she played "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind", a favourite hymn of hers at a church service in her former village church in Benenden, Kent, and accompanied dancers at Blackpool Tower. Prior to this, her only experiences with musical instruments had been childhood piano and violin lessons.[16]
In April 2009, Brand was as a judge with John Amaechi and Jeremy Stockwell on the BBC Two series The Speaker, charting the search for "Britain's Best Young Speaker".[17]
In 2011, Brand presented Jo Brand's Big Splash, a television programme where she performed a stand-up routine and visited people with a love of water and it was produced by her production company, What Larks! Productions.[18][19]
In January 2013 and 2014, Brand was a judge, with Andy Banks and Leon Taylor, on the ITV show Splash! .
On 14 January 2014, Brand presented an episode of The Great Sport Relief Bake Off on BBC Two, a charity version of The Great British Bake Off. In February 2015 she also presented an episode of The Great Comic Relief Bake Off.
Brand is the presenter of The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, which premiered on 8 August 2014.[20] A second series aired from August 2015, third from August 2016 and a fourth from August 2017.
In 2014, Brand co-wrote and starred as Rose in a comedy pilot for Sky Arts called Damned. The show was commissioned for a full series by Channel 4, airing in 2016; its second series aired in 2018.
Since 2017, she has presented the Channel 5 series Jo Brand's Cats & Kittens. The show is available in the United States on Netflix as Kitten Rescuers.
On 28 January 2019, the BBC television series Imagine, presented by Alan Yentob, documented Jo's life and career, with contributions from many of her comedy peers, in a programme titled Jo Brand: No Holds Barred.
Brand appeared in BBC's Antique Roadshow: Nursing Special (which aired on Sunday 26 February 2023) talking to Fiona Bruce about her time as a psychiatric nurse. Brand spoke about her experience working in emergency mental health clinics, as well lighter moments performing in hospital pantos.[21]
Personal life
Brand at Bonkers Fest 2007
Brand married Bernie Bourke, a psychiatric nurse, in 1997[5] in Shropshire. They have two daughters, Maisie Bourke and Eliza Bourke.[22] Her husband and two daughters are vegetarian, but Brand prefers to "pursue pork-pies in service stations when no-one is looking".[3]
Brand delivered a guest lecture on the subject of psychiatric nursing for the University of Derby Psychology Society in 1997 in return for a donation to Derby Rape Crisis. Also in 1997, she opened at Lambeth Hospital in South London, the first major exhibition of the Adamson Collection since the death of Edward Adamson, the pioneer of Art Therapy, in 1996.
In February 2009, Brand was among a group of British entertainers who wrote an open letter to The Times of London in support of the leaders of the Baháʼí Faith who were then on trial in Iran.[23]
Charity
Brand at the BBC Magazines Awards for Excellence, 2007
Brand is a supporter of the charity ActionAid and has taken part in fundraising events for the organisation.[24]
In June 2019, Brand was featured in the BBC Radio 4 comedy show Heresy, after a number of right-wing and far-right[36]European election candidates had been doused with milkshakes during campaign walkabouts the previous month. Brand said "Why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?" She later added: "That's just me, sorry, I'm not gonna do it, it's purely a fantasy, but I think milk shakes are pathetic, I honestly do. Sorry."[37] The BBC later defended Brand, explaining "the jokes made on Heresy are deliberately provocative as the title implies" and that they were "not intended to be taken seriously".[38] The Prime Minister at the time, Theresa May, queried whether a joke about throwing battery acid was "appropriate content" for a BBC broadcast[39] and the BBC later announced that the remark would be edited out of any future broadcasts. The Metropolitan Police confirmed that it had "received an allegation of incitement to violence that was reported to the MPS on 13 June".[40] and that they were investigating the matter.[41][42] Appearing at an event in Henley, Oxfordshire, on the same day, the comedian was said to have apologised for making the joke, saying "Looking back it probably was somewhat a crass and ill-judged joke that might upset people." It was understood that the allegation reported to the police was not made by Nigel Farage or the Brexit Party. Ofcom said it has received 65 complaints about the episode of Heresy.[43] The police dropped the investigation two days later.[44] On 29 August 2019, the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) partially upheld complaints about the joke, saying: 'Whilst the ECU recognised that the wider message from this episode is an argument for more civility in political discourse, not less, and Ms Brand's contribution is not intended to be taken as face value, the ECU felt that it went beyond what was appropriate for the show.'[45]
In a 2018 interview, Brand recalled an incident where she was forcibly kissed by a financial trader during a charity event in Canary Wharf, commenting that she chose not to report the incident because 'it would ruin the day and I was worried no one would believe me'.[46]
Awards and honours
On 17 July 2007 Brand was awarded an honorary doctorate for her work as a psychiatric nurse from the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales).[11] Professor Donna Mead, Dean of the School of Health, Sport and Science, who read Brand up for the award commented, "Jo incorporates much of her experience working in the field of mental health into her current work as a comedian. This has increased awareness of the work done by nurses in the mental health field. She has also used her experiences of working with individuals with conditions such as Alzheimer's to promote awareness of and raise funds for the Alzheimer's Society."[47]
In December 2007 she received a Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Lifetime Achievement Award, an award associated with the Eileen Skellern Memorial Lecture. At this event she was praised for making mental health nursing more visible to the general public.[48]
In January 2014, Brand was awarded a second honorary doctorate from Canterbury Christ Church University, for her work in raising awareness of mental health issues and challenging the stigma surrounding such illnesses.[50]
^Farndale, Nigel (23 October 2009). "Jo Brand Interview". Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2020 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
^Saner, Emine (21 September 2011). "Jo Brand: fat jokes matter". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 September 2018. She turned down the Royal Variety Performance because she didn't want to be a hypocritical republican.
