JO BRAND: Why Every Chapter of Your Life Teaches You Something | GREAT MOMENTS

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2:36Hello, everyone. I'm Jamie Lang, and this is Great Moments. Hey, guys. Welcome back to Great Moments. Now, this week, I want to look back at one of my conversations with the legend that is Joe Brand. Honestly, Jo is one of the funniest people I know She's so kind and so funny and just so incredible Probably one of the funniest people in the UK And Jo was also one of the first guests on the show So I owe her a lot And it's such a brilliant conversation I knew I had to share a little slice of it for you today Now if you like this episode All you've got to do is click on the show notes And it'll take you to the full episode So go and do that if you like this little snippet So sit back and enjoy this great moment With the one and only Jo Brand

3:19When did you first realise that you were funny? Well, I thought I was funny as a child, but then I saw an interview. For some reason, they went to talk to my granddad. He said I was very grumpy and I had no idea. So, yeah, it's difficult to say. I think it's the middle child and I had two brothers and they were like complete kind of pranksters and would torment me, basically. And I think my favourite episode with them ever was where we lived in the middle of nowhere in Kent and we used to go and play in the woods all day like you were allowed to in those days. Yeah, exactly. And I remember once I trod in a wasp's nest and like this massive swarm of wasps sort of came out and my brothers ran one way and I ran the other and they chased my brothers and stung them really badly.

4:13I was so delighted at the time. I was only seven. But it's true. It's funny when you... I think also growing up with brothers, because I had sisters and I had a younger sister and I gave her a hard time. Did you? Yeah, I did give her a hard time, but in a sort of loving way. How do you give someone a hard time in a loving way? I don't know. I used to do all sorts of things. Like she had a horse and... She had a horse. Trying to make it relatable. She had a horse. She had a pony called Teasel. And every single time we had an argument, didn't matter where in the world it was, I would then go and pick up a stone and say, this is going to kill Teasel and throw it.

4:50She would hate it. I'm not surprised she would hate it. She would hate it. But I think when you have that sort of relationship, especially maybe with brothers, it gives you... My sister definitely has this sort of... I don't know what... This sort of inner confidence as well in a strange way. I don't know if your brothers gave you that. Because she sort of learned how to deal with it. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I suppose you're just trying to make yourself look good there. But I taught my sister inner strength. Oh, well done. No, I'm joking. Yeah, I suppose so. I kind of got, I mean, they were awful to me.

5:29Were they really? Yeah, I mean, I once was sat on a five bar gate and my brother, my little brother, Matt, pushed it and it swung shut and I fell off the back. And as I fell off, my arm got sort of ripped open on barbed wire. and what did my brothers do? Piss themselves laughing. I had half my arm hanging out and I had to walk home on my own and then of course my mum and dad went and you know we went to A &E and everything. But it was sort of, it was kind of a bit like that really. But were you, did you become a rebel? Were you a bit of a rebel? Yes, well I say eventually, yes I was. I mean I got chucked out of home when I was 16.

6:11What was that for? Well, for having a boyfriend who was a local drug dealer. And also my parents hate, my dad was like very left wing when he was younger. And this boyfriend was extremely posh. And he brought me home quite late one night. And of course, my dad loved doing that kind of like old man brand thing. Where he said to me, what do you mean by bringing my daughter home at this time? And all this kind of thing. and this guy said to him but my dear chap right yeah which my dad you know hated that sort of thing and thought it was patronizing and he said don't say anything like that to meet again or i'm going to hit you and so he went but my dear chap the fool so my dad hit him and knocked him out you know yeah absolutely what and the thing and the thing with my dad just to say is that my dad suffered from quite severe depression and I think that was the big part of his temper and his his violence he was violent on occasions so was he he was yeah towards towards you yeah Joe it's alright it's alright I'm over it are you sure yes you can talk to me we're here Thanks.

7:29But that's, because I did, I heard, well, I read that you, your father was undiagnosed. And he, if I'm right in saying, he had depressive episodes. And you said that he would go through these episodes a lot. And that must be tricky because as a kid, you don't really understand what's going on. No, you just think they're being horrible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he was for a long time. He didn't, he wouldn't go and see anyone about it. My mum tried to persuade him for years. And then eventually he did when he was in his mid-50s. And he was prescribed antidepressants. And it absolutely changed his life.

8:10And it changed him. Did it really? It really did, yeah. And as an ex-mental health nurse, I wouldn't say antidepressants are the answer to every type of depression. But certainly with him, it was, you know, life-changing, really. It was really interesting. Yeah, someone said to me there are side effects to antidepressants, but the side effects to depression is suicide. So why wouldn't you give them a try? And I kind of really agree with that. And so it completely changed his life for the better. He dealt with life much easier then. Yeah, and he was very different. He was much more relaxed, more humorous.

8:49It really made a huge difference to him. Yeah, yeah. But was that hard growing up? yeah it was very hard it was very hard um because because he was he had kind of odd ideas as well he was very strict about um particularly me because i was the only girl you know about me going out about me going out with blokes about about all that sort of thing um i don't really i remember they let me have a 16th birthday party and you can imagine what that was like they said we'll go out and we won't come home till midnight. And of course it all went like it does. And they came home an hour early and a friend of mine who was really pissed opened the door and threw up on my dad's feet.

9:35So that didn't bode well. And then he just kind of rampaged around the house shouting and threatening everyone and found some guy asleep in the car outside and went, right, give me his parents' number. And so rang the father up and said, will you come and get your drunk son who's asleep in his car? This poor guy was obviously used to his son being drunk and going to sleep in the car and really didn't want to get up at like half twelve at night. Yeah, I know. So, yeah, it was it was like that. I mean, God bless him because he's not around anymore. But in our village, because we lived in a little village, probably from up until when I was about eleven or twelve in the village.

10:18He was known as Old Man Brand. And I worked out how old he was at the time. He was 37 when someone called him that. Because we had a war memorial opposite our house. That's nearly my age. That's hilarious. You were 37? I'm 35, so nearly that, yeah. Well, there was a war memorial. And so some kind of biker types would go and hang around and make loads of noise. and he would go out and run at them and shout at them and wave a stick at them. You know, it was... But you then move into, you go and work as a nurse and you're specializing in sort of mental health. Yeah. And the interesting thing about that is that the culture, as we said back then, was totally different to what it is now.

11:02You know, so when people come in for diagnosis, whether they are depressed or anxious or they are going through a schizophrenic moment, whatever it is, how has that changed to when it was then to when it is now because now people come in and everyone's very empathetic very very understanding whereas before we were empathetic you're thinking too far back to one flow of the cuckoo's nest yeah weren't you in shutter island no it wasn't like that not at all and um it was you know i i worked on a selection of different types of wards when I was training. So general psychiatry wards, adolescence, I worked on the locked ward.

11:44So I got a very good experience, but I ended up full time on the walk-in 24-hour emergency clinic, which just was a fantastic service, which shut down years ago at the hospital I was at, where anyone literally could walk off the street who was worried about their mental health and see someone it was like a and e really um for people with mental health problems but was it called mental health no it was called psychiatry yeah yeah it was called you know i was called a psychiatric nurse not a mental health nurse but the juxtaposition is so interesting because you're doing all of that and you're working in that space but then you're doing comedy as well at the same time i did them both for two years that is wild so that is the because that's quite that's very heavy one side you'll do and i'm sure there's some interesting modes but then you have this completely opposite side and when i when i find your stage name to begin with and i'm hope i'm getting this right please say i'm getting right was sea monster the sea monster the sea monster so and what i find amazing is when is that first moment that you go you know what i'm going to give this a go i think i probably wanted to do it for quite a long time because i i loved comedy when i was a kid you know and i think i suppose i somehow thought in one form or another the world's a miserable place and if people can laugh for a bit it makes it better even if it's temporary I suppose I thought that so that's in a way another side to being a nurse if you like to make people laugh and feel better for a bit because you were doing that weren't you all the time within being a nurse you were trying to cheer people up yeah in a in a in a therapeutic form might I add I did sort of have laughs with people because another thing that people think I think because you know in the olden days people with mental health problems were so dehumanized by the press or by, you know, the way that people talk about them.

13:51A lot of people would think, oh, I can't talk to them because either they'll pull out a machete and try and kill me or they'll be so weird that I won't be able to talk to them, you know. And obviously there's a proportion of people who are very ill and they've lost touch with reality. And yes, they're not that easy to talk to or identify within anyway. But that's what your nurse training is for. and you know with me I just found like I said you know you said I like people and I liked being in that job where we could try and help but it's interesting because you then the comedy on the side you're doing it because you were hit with a lot of criticism to begin with you know oh that's still going on I wouldn't worry about that I've had that for nearly 40 years I had stories or say anything you like honestly I can't you know there is nothing in I know because the weird thing about you would spat at or throw drinks at or shouted names calling you net cow and all these different they're much worse than that what is the worst thing that people would shout you're on stage and one person I heard one of your first gigs someone was just the whole time heckling you the whole way through calling you something that was my first ever gig and someone started chanting and actually it was a comic who did it and he he was pissed and he just started shouting fuck off you fat cow over and over again until i fucked off but that is because i just where do you get that resilience because any normal individual going to give it a go for the first time would just go do you know what fuck this i'm not doing this i don't i don't care about this you know i don't want these these drunk idiots to just to be calling me these names i just can't what how what is the resilience i think there were several aspects so one was me you know and my upbringing and you know i'd had a lot of issues with my dad so i wasn't kind of out of touch with people sort of being horrible to me because my dad not all the time but had been horrible to me and we'd had to all learn to live with that as kids so there was that there was also working as a nurse um and in in the the emergency clinic people's emotions were very heightened so they would be quite abusive and particularly towards me because I was in charge so I was the one who was always wheeled out to say I'm sorry we're not going to admit you or I'm afraid we can't give you any valium or I'm sorry you're too drunk to be assessed you'll have to leave so I was like I was like the head of that cohort that headed towards them so i was used to really getting some much better abuse than i got when i was a comic to be honest with you really much more imaginative and much more cutting you know what do you mean well so like for example when someone just said fuck off you fat cow it wasn't like you know i hadn't heard it before yeah and i kind of heard it before better you know that would be accompanied by a side dish of how they were going to kill me or they were going to rape me or whatever it was.

17:06So no one's ever said that. Well, they've said quite bad things in an audience. But, you know, on the whole, there was never anything as bad as I got when I was a nurse. And I got hit when I was a nurse. No audience members ever hit me. Wow. I've had beer thrown at me, but, you know. That is insane because that is, I mean, that resilience is huge because normally you're just able to get through it and not worry about it too much and just say, well, these are just words. It doesn't really matter. But also you understand that the vast majority of those people that do that are ill. Yeah. You know, and so it's not their fault.

17:44They need help rather than... Yeah, but there's an excuse that, and I get that. You can sort of put that in a corner and say, right, they're ill. But when you're in the comedy circuit trying out and then people are saying it to you, you're just like, hang on a second, what's going on here? For me, maybe I'm too sensitive at times. Well, I think you're probably the normal one. I think everyone is sensitive, really. And it's a question of how you deal with it. I mean, with me, like with the fat thing, my thing was that I would always go on and try and be funnier about my weight than they were. And it was very easy because they weren't very funny about it, the audience, because they always used to say the same thing.

18:22you know it was that they didn't sit at home and write really witty heckles whereas i sat at home and tried to write heckle put down so what was your best heckle you had i heckle put down or heckle i want to hear both if you go uh what was my best heckle well i i used to like the sweet heckles to be honest you know and i think if someone heckles and it's really funny you should just acknowledge that um because that they've said something really funny so if i was to shout at you i'd go get off you fat cow well if i had a particular fat one that i and i would say something like oh i don't worry i deliberately keep my weight up so a tosser like you won't fancy me so that would get a bigger laugh than the original heckle so you kind of yeah it's great one, you know.

19:44built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work, around the work, and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. You know you don't have to wait to shop Black Friday at Lowe's, right? Save up to$150 now and select power tools, equipment, and accessories. Got gifts to get? We've got plenty under$50.

20:20Plus, Milo's Rewards members get same-day delivery for free. Shop Black Friday deals before the rush at Lowe's. Valid through 1118,$25 minimum, and loyalty membership acquired. Order eligible items by 2 p.m. Subject to weight and size restrictions and availability. Terms at lowes.com slash shipping terms. Business is booming. Is your fulfillment ready for peak season? Switch to ShipStation now and handle more volume with confidence when it counts. ShipStation connects Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and over 200 more integrations with one platform that does it all. You can manage orders, sync inventory, track returns, all automatically.

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