Katy Brand

Brand was born in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1979, and enjoyed making people laugh with her impressions as a young child.[3]

Brand attended St Clement Danes School in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire. Following a summer holiday at 13 with friends who were evangelical Christians she embraced their faith and attended church five times a week.[4]

Motivated to read theology at Keble College, Oxford,[5][6] she then lost her religious beliefs while a student.[7][3] Interviewed for the Evening Standard in 2007, she commented: "After about a year, I realised it was mostly rubbish and that things are never as simple as they seem when you are 13".[4]

While at Oxford, she started to write and perform comedy, musicals and serious plays, joining the Oxford Revue and the university's dramatic society.[3]

Brand won Celebrity Mastermind in an edition broadcast in May 2021.

After graduation, Brand did not work as a performer, gaining employment in television production for five years instead,[3] but her social encounters with university contemporaries ultimately convinced her to try working as a comedian.[8] In 2004 she wrote a comedy monologue, performing it around a few pubs in London before joining Ealing Live, a weekly live spot.[3]

Brand established her name with her solo stand-up act at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005.[3]

In 2008, she collaborated with Katherine Parkinson, one of her friends from university,[9] on a BBC Radio 4 series called Mouth Trap.[10]

Brand performed in Katy Brand's Big Ass Tour 2010.[11] She also competed on Let's Dance for Sport Relief in 2010, in which she danced to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)".[12] Also in 2010, she made a guest appearance on the song "Stop Giving Me Verses" by The Hoosiers, which was an attempt to break the world record for the longest single ever released.[13]

In 2011, Brand took part in the BBC Learning project "Off By Heart Shakespeare", where she played the role of Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and delivered a performance of the speech "Out of this wood do not desire to go".[14]

In 2011 she guest-hosted a Children in Need special episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks,[15] and has participated in several other episodes of the show.[16][17] In December 2012 she participated in the 2012 Christmas Special of the dance show, Strictly Come Dancing. Her partner was Anton du Beke; they came second to last.[18]

Brand presented the Penguin Podcast for Penguin Books until February 2021,[19] which included interviews with authors such as Michael Morpurgo (War Horse), Markus Zusak (The Book Thief) and Gabourey Sidibe.[20]

She published her debut novel Brenda Monk is Funny in 2014, a story about a woman trying to establish a career as a comedian.[3] Her debut play 3Women starring Anita Dobson opened at Trafalgar Studios 2 in May 2018 and is published by Samuel French.[20] Her latest book I Carried a Watermelon was published by HarperCollins Publishers in October 2019.[21]

In March 2020, she took the role of Miss Hedge in the West End musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie.[22]

As of February 2021, the comedy feature film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, scripted by Brand, starring Emma Thompson and directed by Sophie Hyde, is in the pre-production stage.[23][24][25][26] It has since been completed and aired on Hulu.

In 2008 she won "Best Female Newcomer" in the 2008 British Comedy Awards.[27] and was also nominated for a Royal Television Society Award the same year.

For Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Brand was nominated for two British Independent Film Awards: Best Independent Film and Best Screenplay.[28]

• Official Katy Brand Website
• Katy Brand at IMDb