page_title: Jo Brand
section_title: Comedy
hierarchical_section_title: Jo Brand / Career / Comedy
caption_attribution_description: English: English comedienne Jo Brand, 1994.
context_page_description: Josephine Grace Brand 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. From 2014 to 2019 she was the presenter of The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice. In 2003, Brand was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In 2019, Brand became a contestant on Taskmaster.
context_section_description: When Brand began her career in comedy, she went by 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.
  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 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.
  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.
  In August 2015, Brand judged the first ever Class Clowns competition at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 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.
caption: Jo Brand in 1994 in Belfast
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