ABSTRACT
The principal details of Jo Brand’s life and of her work as a comedian are well known. She graduated from Brunel University and worked subsequently as a psychiatric nurse. She became an ‘alternative’ comedian during the 1980s, initially using the self-deprecating sobriquet ‘The Sea Monster’. Gradually, reverting to her own name but maintaining the selfdeprecation, she developed a stage persona (see Chapter 4) that was profane, sexually voracious, careless of the figure-conscious norms of conventional female life and mocking of men. In the 1990s she came to rival Victoria Wood as Britain’s leading female comic, performing several national tours and two series of her own show on Channel Four.
