Jo Brand

Josephine Grace Brand (born 23 July 1957) is an English comedian, writer, presenter and actress.

Starting her entertainment career with a move from psychiatric nursing to the alternative comedy stand-up scene and early performances on Saturday Live, she went on to appear on The Brain Drain, Channel 4's Jo Brand Through the Cakehole, Getting On and various television appearances including as a regular guest on QI, Have I Got News for You and Would I Lie to You?.

She also makes regular appearances on BBC Radio 4 in programmes such as The News Quiz and Just a Minute.

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.

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.

Her Doc Marten boots, large size and short hair led to false rumours that she was a lesbian.

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.

In 2003, Brand was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.

Brand was born in Clapham, London, near St Paul's Church in a house which was "a little terraced Victorian place on the Wandsworth Road with an outside toilet", and grew up in Hastings, East Sussex.

Her mother was a social worker at Charing Cross Hospital and her father was a structural engineer.

Her father suffered from depression and her parents separated when Brand was a teenager.

Brand is the middle of three children, with two brothers.

When she was about four, the family moved to the village of St Mary's Platt near Sevenoaks in Kent, and a year later, to Benenden.

Brand was educated at St Mary's Platt Primary School, Benenden Village Primary School, Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School until the age of 16, Hastings High School for Girls and Bexhill College.

After working in a pub, for Barnardo's, and as a nursing assistant in a residential unit for adults with learning disabilities she took a joint social science degree with a Registered Mental Nurse qualification at Brunel University.

She then worked as a psychiatric nurse for ten years, at the South London Bethlem hospital, Cefn Coed Hospital in Swansea and Maudsley Hospital in south London.

When Brand began her career in comedy, she used the stage name the "Sea Monster".

In 2004, Brand appeared in a special episode of What Not to Wear, where fashion gurus Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine gave her a makeover.

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.

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.

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.

In 2010, Brand took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.

Brand played the Demon Dinner Lady in the British live-action film Horrid Henry: The Movie (2011).

She also provided a voice-over for the Lyric, Hammersmith Theatre's 2011 pantomime Aladdin.

Since 2014 she has been the presenter of The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice.

In August 2015, Brand judged the first ever Class Clowns competition at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, she also announced the winner at the Gilded Balloon on the night.

Brand has written a feature-film adaptation of her novel The More You Ignore Me.

She will also star in the film.