Brand Power

Jo Brand has just finished filming The Paul O’Grady Show when we speak.

Having cancelled our earlier interview because her daughter was ill, it’s amazing she manages to find time for a chat, let alone write her autobiography.

“Talking to Paul was easy because I’ve known him for ages, so it was like catching up with an old friend,” she says, “but writing the book was very pressurised, because I was working to a deadline and had the rest of my life going on at the same time. So I don’t know how I did it either,” she says in that infamously lazy drawl.

Well worth the angst, Look Back In Hunger is a fantastic read about a fascinating life. Kicked out of home at 16, Jo had to fend for herself after her father knocked her boyfriend out and burnt all her clothes at the end of the garden.

Jo then dabbled in the usual mixture of booze, drugs and boys, before pulling herself together and applying to university to study mental health.

Working in the famous Maudsley Hospital in South London and then trying to break into comedy in a male dominated world, certainly spice up her memoirs.

But how hard was it to unearth all these long forgotten memories?

“Well, I’m as tough as old boots,” she says. “Talking about your old self is like talking about a different person. And everyone is a sum of their historic parts so you can’t deny that because they make you who you are. So I’m not traumatised by my autobiography no,” the 52-year-old smiles.

“And yes there were hard times, but because of the person I am, and the person I was brought up to be, I have always soldiered on regardless.”

Jo didn’t even get into comedy until her late 20s and burst on to our TV screens with Through The Cakehole in the 90s. “The one thing I did get right was getting into comedy aged 29, because by then you’ve got yourself together and have a sense of self. And the older you get the less you care, and as I was quite a bit older I cared even less,” she cackles.

Having said that, it wasn’t all plain sailing and Jo had her fair share of dodgy gigs before becoming mainstream.

“When you become a comic you become aware of the different kinds of hecklers. Some of them have hate emanating from them which is quite unsettling,” she says. “But because there was a lot of verbal abuse working in mental health it all helped.

“My first gig was so awful it’s amazing I ever got back on stage.

“But I knew it wasn’t a normal comedy gig and I was so drunk I don’t really remember what happened anyway which was a bit of an insulating mat,” she laughs.

Having two daughters in her 40s also changed the way Jo worked and she become much more choosy about what she did.

“I’m in the very privileged position of being able to pick and choose my work. Before I had kids I’d be on tour for three months and would hardly come home at all, but now I make sure I come home every night.

“I still tour quite a lot though, and do quite a lot of corporate events which keeps you sharp, because it’s always for someone like the British Air Conditioning Annual Awards Ceremony and as the surprise guest I can almost hear the audible sigh of despair when I walk in.”

So come on, there must be something that challenges her?

“Well Look Back in Hunger is just the first part of my autobiography, it’s the next one I’m worrying about, up to the present day. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet, or how I will tackle it.”

Because while Jo’s material about bodily functions and feminism is brutally honest, her private life has always been out-of-bounds. Being married to a pyschiatric nurse might help with the teenage tantrums though?

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll do their best but there’s no such thing as a perfect parent, you just do the best you can.”

Sounding postitively contented, you could even say that Jo Brand has mellowed. “Have I changed? I don’t know. I am different and older than I was and people say I’m less manly and more relaxed, but I hope not,” she says, and with another cackle Britain’s favourite comedienne trundles off.