In conversation with... Jo Brand | BFI Comedy Genius

let's start at the beginning jokes we've got a lot to get through but I wouldn't start right at the beginning so tell me about we have a slightly common heritage we both really grew up in Kent don't we we did indeed yeah well I was born in South London in Clapham and then we moved to Kent when I was four and I was brought up in a really small village called Bennington and the only thing that was remarkable about it was they had a very posh girl school that was a bit like Mallory towers and Princess Anne was a pupil there and I just happened to be a bell ringer at the local church the reason was that my best friend's dad was the vicar and he sort of expected me to go to church with her which I thought was a bit unfair and I wanted to go to church so I could support her but not have to listen to him so yeah so I started bell ringing and she used to sing in the choir yeah it's so odd that we have Princess Anne in common because I was at Kings Canterbury and we have debates with them and school dances because they were next door and and I did a debate there when I was a teenager and there was this a bunch of amazingly beautiful girls in the back rows of six warmers and Princess Anne was there and I've always had a thing we only have that phrase oh I got off with in it was more there were years later I won a BAFTA thing and she was and I really wanted a metre I wanted to say too because she is she's got Princess Anne's got the most amazing green eyes she's really close up she's and she's you're very striking obsessed and so as with Rowan Atkinson we were we were we were going to be introduced to her Royal Highness and the the a curry said well what you will do is you will dust and her role analyst will process and she will then come past you and you will you know bow and shake hands and so on she went may offer you some words so she comes to Rowan first Ian deal profile film on television and of course Rome being an engineer says well the thing is the thing about and start on this very long engineering explanation of the difference in film television and she nodded off and and she whisked straight past me and I never got to speak to her oh yeah it was very sad but listen you come from a long line of engineering stock don't you really well well I do I mean yeah I my dad sir a structural engineer and my brother's a quantity surveyor and when I do and I can I do quite a lot of corporate events that are mainly men and I'm normally when you perform at those events they do it's like it's supposed to be a nice surprise for them but when they say my name there's kind of an audible sigh of despair if it's if it's kind of builders or engineers and I and I did this one in Southampton and it was exactly the same thing I went on I could see them all going on cured like that and I said why are you looking at me thinking I know nothing about building it's all but I know loads mercy actually because my dad's a structural engineer my brother's a quantity surveyor and my husband is a [ __ ] plank so that kind of got it off to a nice start really I did ask him about that joke cuz I do abuse my husband quite a lot but I think if they're very rude jokes I'll say to him juh man's right calling a [ __ ] prank tonight dear I'll go no no you're fine he's such a nice guy Bernie's he's not at all like you described him he is they've won about then when I read the other day about so that you do most of the driving in your family yeah cuz that well yeah because my husband abandon ever learn to drive in my opinion and [Laughter] you've got to get a few of those in women have been sort of we've been told with [ __ ] drivers for so long it really annoys me I've actually got my International Rally driving licence just so I could go yeah so you had this sort of did you have a kind of Darling Buds of May kind of childhood was that what it was like at the beginning and then as as you know as we got older and it became apparent that my dad suffered quite badly from depression it sort of turned a bit grim really but the first sort of ten years were quite alright and you kind of you left home quite young didn't you I think yeah by invitation well yeah I had a choice of carrying on seeing this very unsavory character I was going out with or or staying at home and not seeing him anymore so I chose him and what sort of unsavory character was he as heroin addict and he's very posh so that's quite on say free I'm a bit of a fling revolutionary but yeah he came from a very wealthy family in the Hastings area and he was just he has a lot of money and he was just kind of a layabout auntie took drugs and he drank massively and but he was kind of very lovable in a way and he would just get involved in ridiculous things he's in a band right they were called Dennis dog baskets and the pedigree chums and they did one gig he fell off the stage and broke his leg and they never work together so yes so what did you do for a living then when you were what 16 you left home yeah well I left home when I was in the second year of my a-levels and my school I'm very kindly let me go back one day a week to finish my a-levels and four days a week and I worked in the civil service and my job was to pay cleaners every week that was in the DOA in Hastings I was very very boring and I used to get bit drunk at lunchtime in the club bar and I was actually caught dribbling with my face on the desk like that over the Guardian crossword and asked to leave so yeah yeah yeah and it was a flow nursery yeah I worked in a flower nursery that was a summer job that was pulling the heads off chrysanthemums those very taxing yeah what was that for why did you pull them the heads off well I think you know it wasn't out I think the the rationale behind it was to make the middle one grow big so you pull all the little ones round the side off to encourage a great big middle one I'm not much of a horticulturist so and it's obviously famously you became a psychiatric nurse how did that come about then you got your a levels first though yeah well I I took my a-levels at school and I got two DS and an E and I didn't actually want to go to university so I went to further education College and took them again and got three e's so that's very good so what hat with me was I didn't want to do and I could appear early academic course I wanted to do a course where I could do half the year you know academic work and the other half working and Brunel University where I went that is how they are structured and they had a course at the time that meant you could do two terms each year at Brunel and then the summer training as a psychiatric nurse and that fitted the bill perfectly for me so that's why I did it really just because of the convenience of that well also because I mean my mum before she was a before she works in child protection she worked in a big kind of Victorian psychiatric hospital in Sussex as a social worker and she used to take us in there all the time and I think you know for a lot of people the way the press behaved about people that have mental health problems are certainly used to anyway they make them all sound like they're running around waving machetes and they're very dangerous and as we used to go to work with my mum all the time I didn't feel like that and it was a job that I thought would be really interesting and it was yeah I had worked in advertising fierceknight a friend who became a therapist he wanted to give something back and he'd been in AAA and they'd sort of helped him out of it you've had a really really difficult time when he used to drink and did a lot of terrible things and he went away and and they saved his life and he became a therapist and I met him a couple of years ago and I said how's it going he said he's from Derbyshire so country do the accent but roughly he said oh I said I don't mind the alkies I can help the alkies and otter is the [ __ ] loonies I can't stand so by which he meant not not people who are technically mentally ill but people who who keep going to a therapist and refused to change refused to make any changes in their life and you know won't admit that it's anything to do with them and that kind of stuff but so what was what was the job like was it very harrowing as a thing did you did you have laughs yeah I mean but but you know not at like because we just laughed at kind of the stress of it all really because there my I I went through I did I worked on a drug unit I worked on the locked ward for people who were kind of very disturbed epilepsy I work with adolescents so I had a kind of very general broad training and then I chose to work on the kind of symmetric a Andy which is basically like you know like an A&E department except with people with acute mental health problems so a lot of them were people who've been picked picked up off the street by the police and sectioned for three days so that they could be assessed and sorted out so and did you get people do people go back into you know ordinary life or are they once they're in section do they obviously people don't escape again don't they they escape we let them know well it's not it's it's it's kind of it's so much more complex than that you know there are people who have chronic problems for life like like schizophrenia for example there are people that have brief psychotic episodes which are similar to schizophrenia but which are not and I think it's alright for me to say this because I know he's talked about it poor Martin for example had a very brief period when he smokes a lot of dope and he had a quite serious episode and was actually admitted to hospital that I worked in for a bit and you know he was there for a few weeks and and he never got ill again so it's very much dependent on individuals really a lot of psychosis he's a drug induced you know and it's kind of very complicated really so I would say for us our job was to deal with the people that came to us refer them to somewhere that they needed to go so either admit them send them to another hospital give them an outpatient appointment discharge them whatever it might be and what was so brilliant about that service was that anyone could come to us from anywhere in the world and now and again we would have people flying in from kind of Italy or you know I'm checking back here who'd kind of heard about it to get a psychiatric assessment so it was a brilliant service really I mean it's just something that people must have got direct personal experience they don't have they think it's all One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest don't they I mean that's yeah they do and you know one for the business the 1950s and in America which is actually very different you know a friend of my mum's who's a psychiatrist he met people that were in the hospital in the states in the 50s and they had permanent marks on their wrists from iron shackles you know which is just like so many evil isn't it and even even then you know over here it kind of wasn't that bad and the impression is given in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that they use ECT for example to punish someone that's being annoying and you know over in this country but again I don't know if they they did in the States ever use it in that way but it was certainly something that if targeted in the right way is extremely effective but the problem was it was too broadly used and so it gained a bad reputation so yeah just just really interesting I think we might come back to this but so you did 10 years and then what what led you to becoming a stand-up quite a big shift isn't it it is in a way I mean I before I became a nurse I'd always thought about doing comedy and I didn't know um we like funny at school I don't know you'd have to up my dad when my dad was asked by journalist whether I was funny and he went no she was really grumpy that thought my dad always guaranteed to support me actually my poor dad my dad died in February but he was he was he was like a very old-fashioned throwback you know when I first started doing comedy he said what do you wear when you go on stage and I mean just wear what I normally wear and he went don't you wear a hat what does that mean like max Miller with a trilby oh I don't know anyway very weird he he had he had very little idea he I think my dad probably had he been around as a teenager today he may have sort of slightly edged on to the spectrum and and kind of had a bit of Asperger's he was always saying the most appalling things to people that were really rude you know I remember he met an actress once when he was out rambling because he used to love a ramble an actress called Jane lapidaire Jeremy yeah and he really loved her and so they got chatting and he said to me oh I told her that you were my daughter and what you did my oh no that's nice and he went she didn't think much of you okay he was like that all the time it was hilarious was also quite hurt a lot of the time so it's funny it's just parents I remember my mum ringing me up Nick the 80s and said well dear your father and I struggled through another episode of Black Adam last night oh why did they do a friend of mine got a really prestigious job job directing a Theatre in Wales and he rang his mum up and said I've got the job you know and she said couldn't they find anyone better no wonder we're all so disturbed so we we've got some clips tonight that rather front so it was Malcolm Hardee I read that who persuaded you to have a go at Malcolm you should just say that so he sounded good in his autobiography I don't do any of you know Malcolm Hardee know you probably don't he was a complete legend on the comedy circuit everyone absolutely loved him because he was extremely badly behaved but in a very just in a very extreme way for example we we went to Montreal at the same time to the comedy festival and they always had a very esteemed elderly guest and the year we were there it was George Burns the comedian and there was a reception party and Malcolm stood up on a chair and told the assembled audience that George Burns had died of a heart attack on the plane which wasn't true and people were kind of weeping and you know he used to do that sort of thing all the time and he was just hilarious I know he sounds awful but he wasn't he was right well somebody I remember reading about him somebody said that everything about Malcolm Hardee was original except for his act yeah he was a terrible yeah it wasn't so what you just started then you just had to work with your first gig like well I'd already started doing it by the time that I met him my first kick was well it was okay for me because I was so drunk I'd have no idea what I was doing really and it went really really badly but the next day I couldn't remember so never thought it hadn't gone too badly so I think that encouraged me to do it again really that's and so how long were you gigging before you went got under Tilly yeah and will you call the sea monster originally I was called the seaman and that was your name that wasn't my Chris wasn't christened I [Laughter] thought there might have been your dad yeah I think we should call it the sea I wouldn't have been surprised but no Malcolm had a friend called Martin Potter and he used to call me the sea monster I've got no idea why and when I was thinking of sort of professionally becoming a comic but I was still working as a nurse and I didn't really want my name in time out in case you know people that I work with came to see me and so I just said Oh what should I call myself a Martin Porter said oh what about the sea monster right then you know it just kind of happened like that really okay so anyway after a couple of years you've got it was Friday Night Live your very first telling appearance it was yeah I was I was asked to audition for it and yeah I did and I got on it okay well let's have a look at that this so this is Joe's first appearance on television in 1988 on Friday Night Live I thought it's really that's really sweet thank you I think that when I first started I had no idea how to deliver a line and I was so nervous and I kind of ended up doing that weird kind of monotone and I got quite a few reviews of Edinburgh saying that I should read the football results so I started comparing just to try and loosen up it's very striking you've got to you've got to have something like not that Ben Elton thing that I mean doesn't really sound like that does he know not when you're having a cup of tea with no no no and then so the second clip is Joost Berea Just for Laughs in Montreal so that's a bit of a big deal straight from Friday Night Live to going to Canada and I know yeah it was quite a new foursome festival in those days I think it was just a few years old yeah yeah were you nervous that first Friday Night Live thing were you oh god jack because it was live yeah you know but I actually I actually got heckled did you I did on my first ever TV appearance appearance and it was it was so frustrating because you know I'd done clubs and I I had if you could put downs up my sleeve but because they time it to the second I thought if I do anything or engage with this heckler then it's gonna throw all the timing out so I just play out on and then rather weirdly about seven or eight years later I met the guy that attack auld me and he was a TV presenter in local telly in Southampton No yeah and he said that what happened was he'd been sacked that day and he just decided he was gonna disrupt a show and heckle someone tada so you know what would you have said to him what would be now if he pickled now what would you say to him well III have kind of heckled put-downs that range from kind of whimsical through to nuclear so it sort of depends on how bad it was really you know I kind of the nice ones I do it things like Oh where's your girlfriend outside grazing and something like that maybe or like the nuclear one if I have to use nuclear in the first 10 seconds then my if I'll just go home really I'm having lunch with somebody next week that I haven't seen for years and years and years and we used to do cabaret together when I was a university and he's now a barrister but his thing was it was really difficult working with him because the rest of us used to do our thing and what he would do is do a sketch it was so terrible that people started to boo you know he would really really be very very unfunny for a couple minutes people start to get restless and then start to boo and then he would come in with the brilliant heckler put dance strings of them oh you should get an agent so instead of sitting there in the dark handling yourself and there was there were brilliant one-liners deliberately do that so deliberately raise the atmosphere so you could do the foot dance they get more and more angry with him and the more footnotes and then it was dead because the rest of us couldn't come back after that how annoying having lunch with him in his drink so that those early days of sort of alternative comedy did you did you have a sense of being part of something new because yeah I think yeah it was very different because all of us knew kind of what the traditional comedy was that came before us and how very different it was because your dad liked it you know I mean I don't know about other people I don't think anyone's will be as old as me here but I'm 61 and my dad you know despite everything and his depression he was a kind of nice person but he just was a kind of racist not even a closeted one but you know but not a kind of nasty race it's just this weird sort of naive kind of racist person that would say things to me like oh isn't it amazing what brilliant English all the Negroes in Brixton speak I'd say to him dad you can't go around talking like that you know but to him that was what his generation were like really yes so it's a really interesting thing because you know I'm bit older than you so in the 70s I worked as a radio producer and it's what we would now call casual racism and all that kind of stuff because I'm over Roy Hudd days - it was a show called the news headlines for you yeah and Roy's to do a joke in the warm-up which was why there no Pakistanis in Norwich and to which the answer was the Chinese have found out their taste like chicken you know which was what which was was you know which of the audience would find very funny in those days yeah and the thing is the the common wisdom was that it wasn't possible to be funny and left-of-center yeah only right only thing that was funny was my wife so fat you know you know sort of funny Pakistani accents that kind of stuff and over literally over a couple of years two or three years really it all swung round wasn't it and so now what are you saying I think what happened was it did swing round but there there was a substantial kind of majority of people on the alternative circuit who just sort of slightly who suppress that side of themselves and when they felt they were in the right atmosphere they would do kind of quite unsavory misogynist jokes you know and also there was like the entire kind of older generation who still wanted the sort of of humour you know the sort of Jim Davidson type that they don't want that they'd always been used to so there was a there was a constant you know again you know Roy Hudd this wasn't any sort of a Jim Davidson in those days now of course and even Jim Davidson wasn't really Jim DOS and you didn't stick out in the way and what was interesting about him he was only 29 when I worked with him which was considered incredibly young to be a comic that's the other thing that you had to be 55 yet to be Irish or Scottish or from the north there was no other way of being a stand-up and suddenly everybody was very young and from a slightly different political perspective weren't they so oh absolutely yeah you've when you saw did you ever go to the comedy store and comic strip do you ever see Alexei Sayle and oh yeah yeah now III started doing the comedy store kind of 1988 issues yeah yeah so I did yeah who else would have been on with you Julian Clary Mark Thomas David Baddiel you know Jenny look out Jenny a Claire thing isn't how many people started there really yeah absolutely okay so so there's a big sea change in comedy and it was something that also was happening in a little bit earlier than that sort of run the same time in the eighties in in in in tele but let's have a look at some of these you know that political comedy slightly from left of center so let's have a few clips of those do you think that comedy changes anything do you think that you made a difference do you think alternative comedy made a difference the way people think I'd like to think it did but I think if you're a comedian and you think that you need to be very careful because I because there's a huge danger with comedy of people thinking that they are secretly politicians underneath and that they are changing things and for me the important thing was yes talk about things you believe in yes mentioned what's going on in politics but if it's not funny there's no point it's that thing of making fun of things is a very good way of criticising without yeah it's it's the what I'm thinking about is the you know like v2 joke about the Pakistanis and the chicken and all that is that that that was absolutely mainstream normal not considered anything offensive now actually doesn't go down at all well you'd have to get somewhere quite odd for that to being all people have to be very very drunk to find that funny I think and I think that the sort of stuff you're doing there in those clips is that you're pointing out things that people haven't really said before it was really quite innovative what you were doing I think and saying things that women wouldn't certainly not supposed to say I mean you know when we think of female comedians before alternative comedy came along for Marty Kane yes absolutely but it was like the equivalent of you know my wife's you know not that she was good but I'm just thinking that whether I'm not sure directly political comedy does but that sudden swing round that actually you can be funny from a different perspective now it's very difficult to go the other way around doesn't yeah I think a very right-wing comedian like Jim Davison can't I suppose he can't get work but I'm not quite sure where goodbye right oh he lives out there I think doesn't he so yeah I think there are there are you know there are venues aren't there like the circus tavern where that they have very sort of traditional comics on there so there are little pockets of of what you would call traditional comedy all over the place I'm at and I do think you know people that live in big metropolitan centres like London do tend to get a bit complacent and do you don't really know what's you know what's going on outside a lot of the time my mum lives up in Shropshire you know and if you go to a news agents in Shropshire Herefordshire there's like one Guardian and 47,000 a bails and so it's a very different attitude there really so I've read this when I was looking into these things I read a rather good interview with you by a guy called Ben Thompson and the independent in 1996 yeah yeah I think he was really know I remember is he was really nice about drug squad which was the sort of police procedural bit of art of through the cake oh oh yeah and I really loved doing that so I was really pleased that he was kind of and I'm really come to that because this is a great quote this is talking to this extremely amiable woman it's hard it's hard to keep a grip on the fact that there are people who regard her as some kind of cake eating Antichrist which is I think do you actually like cake I don't know I used to do a lot of jokes about cake but the main reason that I did those was because if you if you sort of who was it that invented naughty but nice it was was it Salman Rushdie or it was no it was some very well done very well done that try he was some thrust reinvented aero bubble no one knows about that anyway but yeah yeah absolutely so it's very weld and that's right but I I was used to think if you watch those ads where people are eating very fattening things do you never have any fat pull on them and that's what happens if you eat cat if you eat simp too much cake or too many chips so I kind of did that deliberately because it just annoyed me that you know that fat people weren't allowed to say they like cakes because because in ads you're trying to make people buy cakes because of sort of attractive thin people eating them so it was just a kind of reaction to that really no I like bread I don't really like cakes but how do you you because you do get a butte stone you I mean is you've always had yeah how do you deal with that do you did you do you mind mind you know but I'm a realist so I expect that a certain section of the population are gonna really hate what I do because I'm not exactly mild I understand that yeah so I know people are gonna be horrible to me and it just I think it depends on how it's done I mean you know for example saying this to you earlier I did I did an awards ceremony and advertising Awards and obviously upset the CEO CEO of this particular ad agency by just mildly taking the piss out of him winning everything yeah you because he they won't he won lots of prizes and then they won the big prize it was a big prize what did you say well he came up to collect it I haven't said anything I was just sort of going oh not them again he came up to collect it and I handed over that the trophy and as I handed it over he whispered in my ear I always knew you were a [ __ ] comic but I never realized what a [ __ ] you were and I know that this huge was at the Grosvenor House Hotel so what I did was I it was the end of the night then they the audience couldn't hear that seems like in your ear you know that's right they didn't hear it now so I said oh well good night thanks everyone except from this guy whatever his name was because this is what he's just said to me and I told them what he just said I think that that's one of the issues for women is that and I I'm I'm not any different you know I think women are coward in to not doing anything about those sorts of bullying incidents and I've had things happen to me where I didn't do anything about them because it just you know I was a charity event a long time ago Canary Wharf and it's a day where the big banks pay a huge amount towards charity and so-called celebrities go when you do trading your traders yeah and then you're on the phone going buy sugar and that's all been hilarious anyway they're all quite pissed by about half 10:00 in the morning and this guy came up to me one of the the traders and he said oh you know if I can give you a kiss I'll put 200 quid into the fund and you know it'll right then so yeah I said yeah okay that okay and he just stuck his tongue in my mouth and it was disgusting and horrible but I was there with a lot of charities there were people and I kind of going oh isn't this marvelous and I thought shall I say anything and I didn't say anything because I felt that that was you know that it would it would kind of rock the boat and people would go along I'm not sure we believed her or whatever it was and I think there are numerous occasions when women don't say anything and they should do and I try really hard these days to not do that because like because I think it's you know it's kind of it's not all not to do anything about it just beggars belief that somebody would do that and the the CEO thing is just extraordinarily rude yeah absolutely but I mean that you know that I think that that if you're if you're a bloke you never quite get the quality of the sort of abuse you get from men it's very hard to understand just how awful it can be you know I mean people you know people do say the most appalling things to women they used to do it on stage you know I was awful things I was on with the a comic called Julie Balu one and as she walked onstage and this bloke said it really sort of under his breath so now I could hear he just says I can smell your [ __ ] and you know that if you're a woman but it's just so intimidating I'm absolutely awful and he's doing it in the belief that she will not react to it and tell everyone and she didn't because she was so stunned by it by the time she thought about doing anything about it the moment had gone by and those sorts of things happen to women all the time [Applause] it still goes on and that people think it's all right to behave like that well you're right that men have a just completely different experience in that way I mean for example how do you know it's time to do housework then I tell me no it's your joke I thought I was going to be you against him here no no no it wasn't yeah yeah well how do you know I'm just I think back on my housework James we did a very funny thing for the QI annuals that Joe Brown's guide to housework mum yesterday ya know as I remember it the your line was how'd you know it's time to do housework look in your pants if there's a penis in there it's not time I wanted to bring that back in so so again if you read the press you know there's some I've read some nasty things about you but oddly enough it's not my but we worked on a thing together called comedy box we shouldn't attempt to do a British version of funny or dice and online remember that yeah and we had a big lunch to launch the Sims back by Warner Music and the idea was to you should there should be something online we can get a laugh at any time of day and I didn't work actually but after this lunch we walk back through down the Kings Road from Chelsea Hospital what was extraordinary to me was that you couldn't really get ten yards could do that people stopping a halo Joe and what was interesting is people of all ages and all classes and all genders just how how nice they were the only other person I can think of who's like that is Lenny Henry it's the same thing wherever wherever you go with Lenny hey Len yeah and not just you know people again of all different colors and hues and ages and so that's so you're doing bake-off extra slice is that a fun thing even though you don't like cake is that fun a really good fan and it's sort of not you wouldn't think it's because you're known as you know quite uncompromisingly funny and tough but actually because you are it does fit with the fact that ordinary people like you a lot well thank you for saying that I mean I think one thing that's that's difficult if you're a performer is you know you get put into a box and if you feel like stepping outside it as everyone does because everyone's an individual who doesn't you know fit a kind of a tidy description of themselves you know obviously I was for a long time I was a like a fat man hating lesbians quite a long time and then I got married and I was quite nice then because I've been tamed by a man and that's sad certainly before I got married the Daily Mail oh my god they packed me and Bernie up going about our daily business and underneath his photo they put 12 stone and softly spoken of no idea how thank you way but anyway and underneath mine they put 16 stone loudmouth and obviously they could not believe that someone like who was softly spoken in only 12 stone you know would like to get married someone like me so you know it's it's kind of never-ending and it is it is hurtful but there's a way of dealing with it which is just that you have to accept a proportion of people are gonna be like that you know I think sometimes the press do get it horribly wrong in terms of their perception of what they think you know ordinary so-called people think I remember when Qi started we had this piece in the Sun same with Sun readers vote Qi their third most hated one of the three most hated programmes on BBC on television along with mastermind and university champion and believe or not they were deluged with letters from Sun readers saying really like Qi we think it's really funny and interesting and so they had to retract it good so same same with you it's not it's not what people they think everybody thinks she's a fat lesbian and that's not what they think they relate to very easily so but I would just go back to the more I don't mind that well I'm gonna share but the audience what's you another great Joe Brown lines were my favorite lines of all time I think I might be anorexic because anorexic look in the mirror and think they're fat and so do I I don't know I don't that's tasteless - anorexia is it would you know now you wouldn't know I probably would do it but I have spoken to a couple of people who were anorexic youth who didn't find it you know who found it upsetting and actually the point I made was you know that I wasn't actually having a go at anorexic sand I was having a go yourself and using that kind of well-known almost a cliche about anorexia which is not necessarily true about everyone we're down erects yeah but on the other hand I said you know I'm sorry if I've upset you because I don't particularly want to upset people and I try not to but you know occasionally it happens ok well let's have another clip because this is more this is some of your really good stuff from the 90s late 90s job ran through the cake hole it's a bit of a hit for channel 4 there's something like a couple of these so there's I was I never saw in the 90s I was a commercial structure I didn't watch telly I was all over the world shooting ads and and he really watched the commercial breaks to check out what's going I said mister yeah but it looks really funny through the cake hold and there I was reading a story about a thing you did a sketch with a bunch of real-life amateur dramatics society can you explain well what we did was we found an amateur dramatics society in a little village in Hartford share and they were mainly kind of women in their 60s and 70s and we got them to do films at the time that were controversial like for example book they did boys in the hood which was obviously an American film about gangs yeah and and Reservoir Dogs they did that as well and the thing that was so great about it was that first of all they absolutely loved doing it and and one of the women was my son goodness only when he sees this you know they were all right they saw the victim can't be mad at us but actually they really kind of got their teeth into into the swearing on some of the lines what's that what were they saying things like I just think what the reservoir it was just a lot of kind of you [ __ ] wanker do you know it was really kind of sort of full on staff and it just we we staged it in a village hall so it looked like it was a play and we had someone playing the piano it's just it works so well and they enjoyed saying [ __ ] a lot and I suspect they went on saying it's a lot I'm rust for some reason the last song in not that I couldn't use a thing called a cunnilingus song I remember that yes indeed and somehow I managed to persuade my boss it was really called the kind of lingers song the memory kind of lingers so it did actually go out on there that you know goodbye it's too hard a word to say so let's just say lingers and it was the most embarrassing that's ever happened to me on in a television studio I really was Richard Curtis his idea not - nothing yeah he wasn't the sentimental old floppy he is now and anyway this went out amazingly we didn't get any complaints and the week after us my sister got married for the first time and we're at home in Essex and they're all these you know little old ladies making the sandwiches at home you know and if somebody said did you see that not the nine o'clock news last night she said yeah she said oh I love that so I love like cunnilingus she said I love kind of lingers don't you and that's the thing is you make the mistake that one of the divisions you know like you know gender and diversity and so on but actually age is one of them lose their sense of humor or their sort of think that people over 70 have never had sex and don't know anything about it have never had any swear so Joe you've I was astonished at how much work you get through you you really are one of the hardest-working people I know I think so you've done so much stuff we have time to fit it all about ab fab you're in yeah but really briefly what were you in those I was Carmel who was I think I was the travel writer and what I remember about that and it's not true with so self-obsessed that every bad review is burnt and into our brains but oh my god Victor Lewis Smith said everyone in this show was overacting apart from J Brand who can't act at all and actually to be honest he kind of was right you know I'm not a big fan of his but on that occasion it was embarrassingly bad so very bushel you mentioned in the in the clip from yeah that was the sons gossip editor was he so he was yeah yeah yeah and so never mind the buzzcocks you did and have I got news for you and would I lie to you and all those yeah that's your favorite what are your favorite panel games obviously QC I think you were at one point the most frequent guest on Qi apart from anime well yes Alan aside cuz he's most frequent guest obviously yeah that's right absolutely that's very pleased about that yeah that's one of my favorites I love have a got I love have a Got News for you and I love would I lie to you you've done guest and presenter on have I got news yes just that which is the best job of those fun I prefer hosting it because you're kind of accorded some natural Authority so it's kind of gives you a bit of confidence really I mean I've done it going back a long way and I I remember offending Frank buff really badly like how long ago is that when was that scandal that's a long time yeah because I'm obviously had been set up but how do you met I don't know if you remember here but he was a presenter on a very kind of like family daytime show and he was caught out sort of in a sex scandal like you know wearing stockings and suspenders that and of course a picture came up of him of legs with stocking and suspenders and just by the by Ian Hislop in the makeup room said to him I think it's really brave of you to do this show and he went what do you mean oh dear and then these stocking days came up and I said is that you Frank and he went I have never been so insulted and all my life and really lost it with me and refused to talk to me for the rest 3 min but I didn't realize that he was coming on thinking are they weren't meant well I think they will move swiftly on from that way so let's go back to the happy days when you were you know tiny wee thing and because this is your selection of people who influenced your sense of humor yes yeah shall we go back to this yeah here's some some people that Joe liked when she was growing up she was so good wasn't she Victoria she was and she was kind of really unique as well I think she was just plowing her own furrows so many years before anybody else have a similar you know sensibility got going absolutely on their own an amazing output extraordinary yeah amazing salt very sad okay so so much to get through so just that this is just an amazing number of clips that's all so I don't want to no no I want to know I want to look at some of the because I think your sitcoms are extraordinary don't if anyone's seen getting on and damned for example because again you're taking really important difficult subjects and making them funny and accessible which i think is they're not easy things so let's have a look at some of those because it's fine contrasts what we've just seen so obviously learn to act in the interim because that's well yeah good acting thank you but the person I relied on I have stove's Peter Capaldi because I I wanted to write it but I didn't want to be in it and I kind of heed that he was going to direct it and he said look just try it you know and I said would you promise me you'll tell me if I'm [ __ ] and he went yes I promise you I will and thankfully he didn't tell me that and I think the thing that I always thought about acting which is probably quite a childish thing to think is that you kind of have to do acting you know you have to go or if you're waiting for someone to come you have to go so I have this really adolescent idea of what acting was and I think that my was self-conscious when I first started you know I was trying to do it and he just said you know just be yourself and then a bit less of yourself and that very good kind of the way that it worked that's very good yeah yeah because that's what you well both them be good that very flat acting so which is not actually it's my honesty isn't it's about being in the situation and if I was really here what would I be like and of course you'd be exactly like you were yeah very good joke I want to be be killed very good marvelous didn't you win a BAFTA for that and then it was cancelled for getting on no no we did win a BAFTA for it yeah it wasn't cancelled at that point they cancelled it a bit further down the line we just stopped doing it because we were moving on to different things yeah okay wasn't that removed from the minutes please Marcus so what else you done Joe what not to wear you did that got a makeover that was that fun some of it was I mean I have to say the reason I do it was because I felt sorry for all the women that had gone before me that had just been put down by trinny and Susannah and didn't really have the the confidence or the apparatus to give them a run at good verbal kicking and they were pretty vile to me you know and I I kind of was prepared for them to be sort of abusive and unkind and so I wasn't surprised when they were but just the whole setup of it was hilarious and my favorite bit on the whole show was they kept saying to me we've got a really funny surprise coming up and the funny surprise was that I was sat in a dentist's chair with a very bright light shining over me and then Susannah came in with a big pair of comedy tweezers and when we need to sort your beard out hilarious because I haven't realized I was Brian Blessed obviously and so I I said I think that was like quite a spiteful thing to do you didn't tell me you were gonna do it you know and I think a lot of women come on this show and you treat them in the way that you just treated me and and it's just kind of not on you know I'm the sort of woman that feels that women should help each other not kind of you know it's like each other off and make each other feel humiliated so anyway at that point because that was a bit of a rant to the camera the cameraman went oh my battery's flat and I haven't got any of that at all [ __ ] sake you know that's so unfair the one chance I get to say anything anyway I was quite crossed to the extent that they went and got the executive producer who that means there's really trouble and she said the most brilliant thing anyone's ever said to me Intel easy casual what's the matter I'm just [ __ ] angry about then and she went would you like to have a lie down she did what sort of what sort of human resources training as sheeping on what the most bizarre thing to say to anyone and what does that actually mean about what she thinks like so-called celebrities are like so weird anyway I didn't have a lie-down yeah yeah alright I don't know so what else you done let's dance for comic relief let's walk for Sport Relief let's have a quick well you can tell that Greg my trainer really fancied me he was only saying I was morbidly obese to throw people off the scent i I remember seeing you just sum that absolute hell to me it good for you for doing that I mean well actually I loved a lot of issues I did yeah I love walking I'm not I mean I am not very fit but you know I I kind of got fit enough in in the training that I did I mean Greg my trainer one day he made me go like from the road up and down Primrose Hill ten times without stopping right and I was saying to him what's my maximum kind of heart rate as soon as you know how far up you can let your heart go it's um it is 220 I think - your age right so let's say I was 60 then it would be 240 no 260 and anyway so we were going up and down and I had a watch and I looked great and it was a hundred and fifty-eight I'm just about to die realize so you know I was kind of fit enough to do the walk but it was they were very long grueling days really do you actually like dancing with a little bit of dancing you do I love dancing yeah but they else you do strictly it yes quite a few times no but no well I think if I wasn't kind of 61 if I was like 45 I'd probably do it but I'm kind of in the category where I'll get fired out of a cannon or you know dragged around the floor by Anton dubeck pretending I'm a tethered farm animal or something I'd say if I did do it I would really like to have a go at proper dances but I think maybe I'd have a strokes probably not a good idea anymore some other things you've just had the ultimate accolade a part in the Peppa Pig movie oh yes apparently playing mrs. crocodile crocodile familiar with mrs. crocodiles obviously is sort of quite quite sort of quietly threatening kind of how I like to be at home and what about countdown because you've been on countdown a lot is it eighty eight times something like that I'll often the dictionary seen off all the other present most of the presenters Richard Whiteley was my absolute favorite and I missed him terribly you know and he was like such good fun really well yeah really nice guy and yeah it's I love doing a love Nick hewer needs someone I would have married if he wasn't married and he said the same to me once so you know who knows [Music] providing my husband Bernie and his wife and I'm very sorry country over there what she says about it it was sick okay so one last we're miles out of time we're over time and I want to get a few questions in so let's just have a look at this last set of clips so that they can so this is about some other things that you've done Joe so three novels two comic history books a movie what's the more you ignore me it's just come out yeah amazing and your latest book born lippy how to do female which is in a book of advice yeah it's not serious though so if you read it just ignore everything in it because it's meant to be funny and you know above above everything else and it's it's kind of because I've got teenage daughters I've got a 16 year old a 17 year old and I'm kind of because I had them when I was quite old I'm sort of their grandma and their mom as well and so I've sort of tried to kind of offer advice that I think is useful like for example you know a lot of people are worried about their kids watching pornography I'm on the internet so my solution to that is to say to your kids let's all sit down and watch it as a family and then you know you can look at those curtains aren't they lovely or I say that plumbers really handsome isn't he actually you know I also bought it what it does is because I think if I may if my kids were like if I'd had them when I was in my 20s I would be kind of quite out of touch now but I have to learn all the sort of teenage phrases and things which are very good fun to play with I mean my my oldest said to me the other day oh god you're so moist right I think you'll prevent I'm not saying that so they're quite grumpy but they really make me laugh and I think that's great have fun you've just done so many things I mean we could go on for hours and hours really and I can't believe that you ever actually have any spare time but apparently occasionally you do and I this is a quote from a newspaper article one of her pleasures is an hour on Mumsnet she says partly because of the usernames my favorite is eat [ __ ] Derek who wouldn't want to know the history I do love Mumsnet because it sort of gives you the angry woman's guide to how to run your life is brilliant I think we can some sum up your attitude to life and comedy Joe with this very touching quote one of you from you they say men can never experience the pain of childbirth but they can if you hit them in the Ghoulies with a cricket bat for 14 hours ladies and gentlemen Joe Brand [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: BFI

Views: 19,683

Keywords: British Film Institute (Publisher), British, film, institute, films, movie, movies, cinema, BFI, Jo Brand, comedy, Comedy Genius, gender, NHS, counselling, therapy, women, sexism, society, culture, interview, 1980s, feminism

Id: uplTJdPNV2A

Length: 61min 1sec (3661 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 17 2019