Showing results by author "Jo Brand" in Biographies & Memoirs

Jo Brand is one of Britain's funniest and best-loved comedians. With a sharp eye for the absurd and in her own unique voice, she tells her story for the first time. What possessed her to become a professional comedian in the cut-throat world of stand-up comedy after 10 years as a psychiatric nurse? How did she deal with late-night drunken audiences? Raised in middle class comfort, Brand left home in her teens to live with someone entirely inappropriate.

When Jo Brand hosted Have I Got News For You late last year, her calm explanation of the effects of sexism on women to a bemused all-male cast turned into a viral phenomenon. There has been a whole tradition of books over hundreds of years where a father shares his wisdom with his son - started by Lord Chesterfield in the 18th century - while women have been silent (aka bullied into thinking their advice wasn't worth writing down). This book puts a stop to all that.

Jo Brand tells the story of how she crawled to fame and fortune, managed to persuade someone to marry her and had some children at an age when she should have been in a bath chair on a seafront. In this second volume of her memoirs, Jo recounts wild times on the comedy circuit, the attempts to tart her up for the TV screen, running the marathon, rally driving, her numerous, occasionally extremely inebriated, Edinburgh festival appearances, her 'acting' career and much, much more.