A Big Slice of Jo Brand

By the mid-1990s, Jo Brand had deliberately stepped away from the strict, concise deadpan of her early television appearances to embrace a looser, conversational rhythm. She uses this relaxed pacing to dismantle the hypocrisies of women’s magazines, mocking Cosmopolitan for thinly disguising husband-hunting guides as feminist empowerment. The highlight of the routine involves her quoting a supposed article on how to speak knowledgeably about quantum mechanics while giving a blow job.

A Big Slice of Jo Brand was shot in a television studio designed with rounded, tiered seating rather than a traditional proscenium stage. Originally released on VHS in 1994 and broadcast on Channel 4 two years later, the set documents a transitional phase in her career as she learned to hide the highly rehearsed nature of her material behind a casual veneer. She maintains her signature hostility throughout, culminating in a fantasy where King Henry VIII is resurrected specifically to behead Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman star Jane Seymour simply because she is a bad actress.