Jo Brand
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.4 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2007
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the stand-up comedian Jo Brand. From the word go she always anticipated she would be heckled about her weight and appearance. While most people would run a mile at the thought of standing in front of a rowdy, aggressive and largely drunk audience, she says that the worst that can happen is humiliation - and she adds that as a woman, she was already equipped to deal with this, because people felt free to comment disparagingly on her appearance in everyday life.
Her first career was as a psychiatric nurse - and for several years she would spend the day working in a psychiatric unit before appearing at a comedy club in the evening. Both careers demand an ability to be calm in extreme situations and to display a confidence that is often not felt. Her extreme act meant that for many years she was labelled a man-hating feminist - but she confounded critics by getting married and having two children.
Elements of this programme may offend some listeners.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Oh England, My Lionheart by Kate Bush Book: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Luxury: A church organ.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.1 | Elements of this program may offend or upset some listeners. |
| 0:11.9 | The program was originally broadcast in 2007. My castaway this week is the comedian Joe Brand. |
| 0:35.0 | She's been making people laugh since the alternative comedy boom of the 1980s |
| 0:39.0 | with her particular mix of dead pan-outrageousness and self-deprecating one-liners. |
| 0:45.0 | For years she was known simply as the sea monster, a professional alter ego that reflected |
| 0:50.4 | her distinctive Luke and attacking style. She once memorably quipped that the way |
| 0:55.2 | to a man's heart wasn't through his stomach, but through his handky pocket with a bread knife. |
| 1:00.1 | Yet there's so much more to her than searing one-liners. |
| 1:03.0 | For ten years prior to finding her comedy feet, |
| 1:06.0 | she was a psychiatric nurse, |
| 1:08.0 | and more recently she confounded those who had her down as a man-hating lesbian |
| 1:12.0 | by marrying and having two children in quick succession. |
| 1:16.3 | The stand-up that you put yourself through, Joe Brand, I mean, presumably you love it. |
| 1:20.9 | I do absolutely love it, yes yes I don't find it something to be got through |
| 1:26.3 | I I find it something to be got through before I've done it but when I'm doing it it's |
| 1:30.8 | just an absolute joy 80% of the time. I mean to most normal people there would |
| 1:36.0 | be nothing worse than standing up in front of a stage and convincing an often belligerent |
| 1:40.0 | audience that they did indeed find you funny. Well yeah that is a point of view that I |
| 1:45.2 | hear quite a lot but I don't agree with that. You know ultimately the worst thing that |
| 1:50.0 | can happen is that you're sort of humiliated by an audience and I think actually when you |
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