BBC1: 10:45 PM tonight.
Jo Brand: No Holds Barred: Alan Yentob presents a profile of the comedian, going behind the scenes as she presents Have I Got News for You? and Radio 4's The News Quiz and accompanying her on a tour promoting her latest book Born Lippy: How To Do Female. With contributions from Peter Capaldi, Alan Davies, Victoria Coren Mitchell, Mark Thomas, Mary Beard, Morwenna Banks and Ian Hislop.
Digi-box already set (Sat. afternoon ritual whilst going thru' the upcoming TV progs. )
Very much looking forward to it.
Quote: Rood Eye @ 28th January 2019, 1:13 PMBBC1: 10:45 PM tonight.
Jo Brand: No Holds Barred: Alan Yentob presents a profile of the comedian, going behind the scenes as she presents Have I Got News for You? and Radio 4's The News Quiz and accompanying her on a tour promoting her latest book Born Lippy: How To Do Female. With contributions from Peter Capaldi, Alan Davies, Victoria Coren Mitchell, Mark Thomas, Mary Beard, Morwenna Banks and Ian Hislop.
Thanks Rood Eye - I have set the Tivo to record it as I don't usually watch Imagine. I think there was an article about Ms Brand in this week's Radio Times too.
Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 28th January 2019, 3:01 PMDigi-box already set (Sat. afternoon ritual whilst going thru' the upcoming TV progs. )
Very much looking forward to it.
Aha, you're a bit like me - I tend to go through the Radio Times on Saturdays and try and plan the week's recording schedule. Mr Nun used to like highlighting certain programmes and now I'm older myself, I kind of get his point.
Quote: TheBlueNun @ 28th January 2019, 3:09 PMAha, you're a bit like me - I tend to go through the Radio Times on Saturdays and try and plan the week's recording schedule. Mr Nun used to like highlighting certain programmes and now I'm older myself, I kind of get his point.
I used to go thru' it with a highlighter and then set the video, but now with the digi-box it's straight in there - Bosh!
I've just watched it and found it a highly entertaining, informative and touching insight into the life and times of (probably) the most significant female stand-up comedian Britain has ever produced. I think it's also true to say she's the most naturally talented female stand-up comedian Britain has ever produced.
Over the decades, I've seen countless women comedians almost all of whom until quite recent times appeared to be reciting old, predictable and usually very vulgar jokes more or less mindlessly. It was obvious they were just reciting the material parrot fashion and hoping that the crudity of the material would make up for what was essentially a total lack of talent on their own part. It usually did.
In stark contrast, Jo Brand has always appeared to be speaking her own mind and her audiences have usually realised that the contents of that mind are very much worth listening to. Even when I think back to the early days of her TV career, I always got the impression that the men in the audience realised that her attitudes to sexism had a solid foundation and, even more surprisingly, many of the men appeared to be listening to her words without wanting to jump up on the stage and punch her in the face. I think it's probably true to say she's done more to change society's attitudes towards women than most other people in Britain - both inside and outside the world of comedy.
In recent years, women comedians have improved out of all recognition but very few have the talent to compete with the top men in the business. There are some very good women comedians working in Britain at the moment but, if I had to list my top twenty stand-up comedians working in Britain today, Jo Brand would be the only British-born woman on the list.
She is a comedian the like of which we are unlikely ever to see again.
Great doc, it;s a shame Jo Brand seems to have given up stand up these days, but then again Damned was one of the best sitcoms of recent years and it was a crime that it was cancelled before it had a chance to have a proper resolution.
Shame there was no footage of Through The Cakehole, it was great to see her doing sketches.
Her screenplay 'The more you ignore me' is a great film.
Dark and very funny.
Just watched it tonight and found most enjoyable and enlightening.
I still feel the same way about her stand up when she first started out with the drone delivery (somebody on the doc. likened it to reading out the football results), which I found annoying and off putting to the extent it killed the joke - thank God she changed her style and became brilliant.
Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 29th January 2019, 11:23 PMthe drone delivery (somebody on the doc. likened it to reading out the football results)
Monotonous stand-ups come in only two varieties - the very good and the totally crap, basically because if the material isn't very good and they're adding nothing of themselves to it, the act overall is necessarily crap.
It's on that basis that I decided Jo Brand was very good when I first saw her on TV.
There are of course different degrees of monotony. Jo's early delivery style was far from lively but compared with Steven Wright (no, not the one in the afternoon), she was Lee bloody Evans! 
Quote: Rood Eye @ 30th January 2019, 12:31 AMIt's on that basis that I decided Jo Brand was very good when I first saw her on TV.
There are of course different degrees of monotony. Jo's early delivery style was far from lively but compared with Steven Wright (no, not the one in the afternoon), she was Lee bloody Evans!
Yes, now there's another one. Can't watch him. That style of delivery just kills it dead for me and could see nothing in the future for a certain boring droning Ms. Brand, who fortunately went on to bloom. Presumably she realised that style was going to get her nowhere, otherwise why change - a change certainly for the better.
It did get her noticed more than most people, Herc!
Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 30th January 2019, 7:45 AMIt did get her noticed more than most people, Herc!
After she changed her style. 
How would being the same get her noticed? "The Big C" act really got her noticed. It was the same with Julian Clary, maybe he wouldn't have got on without being The Joan Collins Fan Club. Then he became the same as everyone else. 
Sad really.
The first time Jo Brand ever appeared before an audience, she absolutely died on her arse (as the saying goes).
She ascended the stage to cries of "F**k off, you fat cow!" and those cries continued throughout her act until, having finished her set, she walked off the stage to absolutely no applause whatever.
In the 1980s, club life was tough for women who didn't get their tits out but, for women who kept their tits to themselves and were not conventionally beautiful, it could be very tough indeed.
Amazingly, she kept going but, even when she'd been spotted by TV people and was becoming a well-known face in living rooms around the country, she was still described by a less-than-gallant newspaper columnist as a "hideous old boiler".
The truth of the matter (I suggest) is that her material was always good and her criticisms of male-dominated society were founded on such solid ground that millions of men who would get angry when criticised by whingeing, whining, bandwagon-climbing, feminist wannabe-comedians would listen to Jo Brand and agree (albeit perhaps privately) that she had a point.
As she gained acceptance, she was able to reveal more of the woman within and audiences who had previously gone no further than admiring her gradually began to like her.
Today's society gives traditionally oppressed groups (women, non-whites, the disabled, etc) a golden ticket into show business as heckling them or even suggesting they're not much good has become almost a capital offence. Nowadays, it's normal for talent-show judges to fall out of their chairs laughing uproariously at performers who, if they were white and male and able-bodied, would be taken outside and shot through the head.
It was different in the old days. Only the talented survived, and Jo Brand has not only survived: she has gone from strength to strength.
