Jo Brand: In Conversation was an event staged as part of WoWFEST 2019 – Where Are We Now? Writing On The Wall’s 20th annual festival programme. For anyone not familiar with Writing On The Wall, it is Liverpool’s longest running writing and literary organisation. The annual festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary and this year’s event has the theme Where Are We Now? which considers the current state of the world where uncertainty seems to rule. 2019 is Liverpool’s Year Of The Woman and as such it is celebrating the achievements of amazing women.
The stage was set up for an interview, and Eithne Brown, the Liverpool actress best known for her TV and theatre roles, set the scene for the evening before welcoming Jo Brand onto the stage.
Jo Brand walked nonchalantly on to the stage dressed in her customary all black attire finished off with her familiar Doc Marten boots carrying a bulging shopping bag slung over one shoulder. Jo’s laid back style was apparent from the start and she at times appeared to be conducting the interview with Brown instead of the other way around as both personalities shared anecdotes from their past careers and family life.
Jo Brand has numerous TV appearances, acting and writing credits to her name and is renowned for her comedic wit and outstanding views on feminism, PMT, the menopause and women’s issues in general. She is celebrated for speaking her mind, her use of expletives and not sitting quietly and during her conversation with Brown she didn’t disappoint.
Brown started the conversation asking about Brand’s early childhood in the remote Kent countryside mucking around competitively with her two brothers, including smoking, drinking and staying out all hours, basically being a teenage rebel. At fifteen she fell in love with a wastrel four years her senior; he was a heroin addict from a posh family. At sixteen she received an ultimatum from her parents, either pull yourself together or get out. She got out.
Brand's first job was at a Dr Barnardo's home, following in the footsteps of her social worker mother. After this, she moved to London and famously became a psychiatric nurse; the daily parade of drug addicts, alcohol abusers and the clinically depressed, gave her the sense of humour and bravado to deal with any comedy audience and later the enthusiasm to write and appear in the well-received TV sitcom ‘Getting On’ based in a geriatric ward in a NHS hospital.
Brand was a pioneer of the alternative comedy scene; she started performing at the age of twenty nine in 1987 whilst working as a nurse under the name ‘Sea Monster’ and it took her two years to turn pro. At the time she estimated that there were approximately two hundred and fifty male comedians compared to only fifteen women. She suffered extreme verbal and physical abuse whilst performing and became used to the heckling about her weight and appearance. Her material, about her weight and men, made here a ‘bete noire’ among those who despised the rise of alternative comedy but she persevered and went on to forge a TV career appearing on panel shows such as 'Have I Got News For You' and presenting 'The Great British Bake Off: Extra Slice'.
Jo Brand is an engaging raconteur and conversationalist with no airs and graces. She told us, with slight bashfulness about being an agony aunt for SAGA magazine which she admitted to loving and disclosing that her psychiatric nursing had helped with the advice she provided. She bemoaned the fact that good manners seem to be a thing of the past and shared that she had once been given a free Wimbledon ticket to which she had sent a Thank You note to the organiser. He replied saying that in twenty years he had never received such a note and as such since that time he has invited her to Wimbledon every year.
She also recounted her Sport Relief challenge when she clocked up a journey of one hundred and thirty seven miles, which took her from east to west across the width of the UK. She related that she did it as she wanted to raise shed loads of money to help a huge amount of people but also she wanted “to show fat old women that they could walk”.
Brand admitted that she didn’t really enjoy acting and described her acting ability as really playing a version of herself and recounted that a review of the TV series 'Absolutely Fabulous' in which she appeared, said “Everyone was overacting, except Jo Brand who couldn’t act at all”. She isn’t afraid to find herself amusing and to genuinely laugh at herself whist taking the mickey out of others. She engaged with Eithne Brown with ease, even encouraging her to sing The Drifters', 'Under The Boardwalk' although Brown was under the impression that it was a Four Tops' number. There was warmth between the two women even though Brand admitted at the start of the conversation that she didn’t really know who Eithne Brown was, except she thought she had been in the TV soap opera 'Brookside' but that it was a programme she hadn’t really watched but had read about.
There was a short Q & A near the end of the interview and comments from the predominantly female audience were complementary and supportive to which Brand was appreciative. Brown presented Jo Brand with a gift of a book of poems entitled “A Twist Of Malice, Uncomfortable Poems For Older Women” which she accepted with amusement.
It was a pleasant evening and it was easy to warm to Brand and listen to her exploits and highs and lows of her career but of course the whole evening was a PR exercise to promote sales of her latest book, ‘Born Lippy’ which was on sale in the foyer with the promise of an opportunity to meet the author who would sign book purchases.
Jo Brand is known for her comedy as being droll, dark and astringent whilst applying a razor-sharp wit to feminist issues; I found her to be a charming woman, at home in her own skin who takes life as it comes and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Reviewer - Anne Pritchard
on - 14/5/19
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