Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject: Katy Brand
How do I look? Katy Brand, Comedian, age 29
Interview by Charlotte Philby
Saturday, 30 August 2008
independent.co.uk
Shopping is like binge-eating. I won't shop for ages, and then suddenly, I'll buy everything at once. In reality, I'll have had my eye on something, but to the unsuspecting passer-by, it looks like I've made a very rash purchase.
I'd like to be seen as someone who has an idea about what is going on in fashion, but doesn't know too much. I like nice things that are a bit under the radar. These trousers are smarter than black jeans, and they're quite flattering. Plus, they're a close-cut, but not a super-trendy skinny fit. They're just very nice.
I recently discovered All Saints. I was in a hurry and needed something to wear to [press awards ceremony] the Shaftas. I saw the dress version of this top I'm wearing and fell in love with the buttons. My mother always said fabric-covered buttons look "high quality".
I like clothes to be unisex. This jacket has box-shaped shoulders. My shoulders are a bit narrow, so I like a square cut to even things out. It is from Marks & Spencer, which is always good for basic underwear, with the odd hidden gem in other sections.
I don't like pretty jewellery. I like big chunky pieces that don't get lost. I wear gold-hoop earrings all the time. I don't feel like me without them. And I found this gold chain necklace with a crystal pendant at Gill Wing on Upper Street, Islington. I love it. My friend calls it the "Heart of the Ocean" and sings the Titanic theme tune to me whenever I wear it.
I went through a stage of having my hair cut horrendously short every few months. There was no learning curve. My hair stays quite basic when I'm working. Now I'm yearning for a change. I had a heavy fringe for a Kate Nash sketch recently, and people thought it looked good. But usually, stylists make me up to look as bad as possible.
Havaianas are the king of the flip-flop world. I have them in yellow, turquoise, pink and gold. They are so comfortable and versatile. I'm a sucker for anything gold. I like having reasonably well-presented toenails, particularly in the summer. When I have free time I get really into pedicures and all that stuff. It makes me feel more in control.
'Katy Brand's Big Ass Show' returns to ITV2 on 2 Sept; the DVD of series one is released 6 Oct
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I quite enjoyed some of the characters in her first series (especially the soldier) so it's good to see there's a new series starting.
They started to appear when I was 10, and I hated them. I was very sporty and sociable at school, but suddenly I was playing kiss chase with one arm self-consciously held across my chest, and that slowed me down. It wasn’t something the chasing boys seemed too bothered about, but I was a competitive child and I was playing to win – not to engage in sexual congress.
It didn’t get any better when I hit my teens. I regarded my breasts as an embarrassment, especially in ballet class where a teacher kindly pointed out that they were like “two pots of jelly trying to escape from prison”. She was no kinder to the skinny ones (“you look like a hatstand in a tutu”), and so we learnt early that our bodies were there to be judged and commented upon.
Fabulous’ survey has revealed that women think they should be a size 8, whereas men would prefer them to be a size 12. Men repeatedly say they like women to have a bit of a jiggle when they walk, so why are us ladies so obsessed with being hard and tiny? It’s clearly nothing to do with attracting men – it’s to do with pleasing other women.
Have you noticed that among all the vile, shouty people on TV telling you how to look, how to cook and how to fuck, the only one saying “hold on, calm down, you’re fine as you are” is a man! Gok Wan is leading the revolt against female self-loathing, and is a positive lone voice in a sea of bitches telling us we’re no good, all of whom are now banned from my Sky+ box!
Watching the first series of Katy Brand’s Big Ass Show go out, I thought I looked like a sweaty suet pudding in a wig. But then a friend told me he fancied me in every costume (he is a lunatic, but I like to think of it as a moment of clarity), so I decided to be a bit kinder to myself.
Why don’t you try being a bit kinder to yourself too? The point is, men fancy you. Not all of them, but enough of them to make you feel very good about yourself. So stop worrying about what men think of you, because most of them tend to focus on your good points anyway. They’re nice like that, and also they want to sleep with you, so they have their ‘booty spectacles’ on. That’s the fun part. The not-so-fun part is running the gauntlet of female approval – and that includes your own.
The revolution starts here, ladies. There’s a lot of exciting stuff to be getting on with, so let’s not get bogged down with Botox, bums, boobs and bullshit!
The queen of comedy tells Louise Cummings which celebs she’s got in her sights in her new live show. Katy Brand
22/04/2010
cambridge-news.co.uk
THERE is nothing more sickening than smug celebrities flaunting their designer clothes, palatial homes, perfect children and rock solid marriages (erm . . . excluding Cheryl Cole, Toni Terry and Tiger Woods’ missus, of course). So thank the lord for anarchic comedian Katy Brand, who is surely the antidote to all this slosh, making a career out of merciless send-ups of celebrities who, let’s face it – damn well deserve it!
I’ve always admired this ballsy lady, and my respect reached new levels when she poured her ample curves into a skin-tight leotard and sheer tights to take on Beyonce’s booty-shaking track Single Ladies, on the final of BBC1’s Let’s Dance for Sport Relief. Despite her slick routine, Katy was pipped to the post by cross-dressing comedian Rufus Hound, whose truly hilarious and scarily life-like rendition of Cheryl Cole’s Fight For This Love won over the judges.
However, this fearless female was the winner in my eyes, so I couldn’t wait to catch up with her as she prepares to bring her riotous Big Ass Show to Cambridgeshire tonight.
“Hello, it’s Katy Brand here,” she says brightly, as I pick up the phone. Already, she’s one up on most celebrities, who usually either call you two hours later than they agreed or adopt a rather lacklustre interview-weary tone, at the thought of another tête-à-tête with the press. She’s in high spirits, sitting writing some new material for her tour, and obviously very excited at the prospect of bringing her various alter egos to life on stage. For those uninitiated in Katy’s slightly warped comedy world, her Big Ass Show is full to the brim with pop star skits and celebrity spoofs. Among the favourites to get the Brand treatment have been Kate “normal” Winslet (who spends her whole time trying to pretend she is “normal” by riding buses and getting out into the community) Lily Allen, Lady Ga Ga, Little Boots, Rihanna, Amy Winehouse and many more unfortunates.
Even the Queen doesn’t escape Katy’s anarchic streak, being portrayed as East End gangster, Her Maj. “I always love doing the Queen because it’s just funny looking like the Queen and then opening your mouth and sounding like Alan Sugar! That makes me laugh,” she chuckles. “I’m certain the Queen sits there with Philip watching the show, or if she has to go out to meet a soldier or something, she’ll Sky Plus it,” she says with mock conviction.
Oxford graduate Katy also has her own collection of outlandish comic creations such as Captain Rosie, decked head to toe in army combats, who presents a TV show in the style of her hero Ross Kemp, and tracksuit-clad Cheryl the Olympic teenager, who hasn’t a hope of qualifying, but makes up for her lack of skill with enthusiasm.
“They just tend to be based on things that are going on inside my own head, my own neuroses and things that annoy me about myself, then end up in really extreme versions in the show,” she explains. She is tight-lipped about the full line-up of celebs for her live show, although lets slip that one of her new characters could be feisty Jo Frost, of Supernanny fame, which should be a treat. With such a wide repertoire of celebrity characters, I wonder how exactly the queen of the lampoon picks her unsuspecting victims.
“I read all the gossip magazines – and there tends to always be a handful of celebrities banging on about something. Like when Lily Allen was marketing herself as a council estate kid when she actually went to one of the poshest schools in the country. So you sort of just want to say: “Er, no, you’re busted!’ I don’t think the A-listers should have it all their own way.”
So far, Katy’s comic parodies have been fairly well received, although Lily Allen was somewhat nonplussed with her portrayal. “I did have a slightly tense chat with Lily Allen once in a restaurant, but it was all right in the end and her mum gave me a nice hug!” she recalls. “Kate Moss really liked her one and Little Boots sent me a message on Twitter saying she liked hers too.”
But what the celebrities think is far less important to Katy than how she is perceived by the public, and winning the Best Female Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards in 2008 was the recognition she’d been craving. “That was lovely, it was like the elders of the tribe patting you on the back, saying: ‘Yes, child, go forth and prosper” or like the grown-ups in the room letting you know you’re all right.”
It’s been a busy time for Katy, having recently finished filming Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang with Emma Thompson, which she describes as “just incredible”. “I’d like to do some more feature films and some writing, I think. Working on Nanny McPhee was amazing as they just brought me carrot and ginger smoothies all day,” she laughs.
Whatever her movie aspirations, let’s hope that, for all our sakes, crazy Katy and her menagerie of comic characters continue, as what can be better than poking fun at celebrities? “It’s good to tease these people who are in danger of getting a little bit self-important. They deserve it!” she cackles. Celebrities, you have been warned.
Katy Brand's Big Ass Tour Live Review
Churchill Theatre Bromley
Monday 26th Apr, '10
Steve Bennett
chortle.co.uk
The promoters of Katy Brand’s first tour seem to have grossly overestimated the pulling power of her ITV2 sketch show. On a quiet Sunday night in Bromley, around 300 fans rattle around in a theatre built for 785. It doesn’t make for much of a sense of occasion.
To add to the subdued atmosphere, Brand’s performance can also come across as flat, especially in her underpowered singing. This is a show that requires a ‘big ass’ personality to pull off – the frequently pedestrian writing certainly won’t carry it – yet Brand isn’t always the beacon of confidence she needs to be. When the impish side to her personality does shine, the show flickers into life… but it’s a fragile thing, too easily extinguished.
Her portrayal of celebrities has earned her plenty of column inches from the tabloids who obsess about the real thing, but they are the least interesting parts of the show. She usually makes no claims for accuracy in her impressions, instead fabricating a personality trait from the public image, such as Kate Winslet’s desire to be seen as ‘normal’ – an initially funny running joke that wears thin by the fourth video insert in a 90-minute show.
Brand’s Lily Allen spoof Song Of My Life has certainly perfectly captured the spirit of the original, but the song parodies are generally lazy, for example having a wasted Amy Winehouse sing not about Valerie but valium – hardly the product of a hard-working writer. That said, her Mariah Carey, warbling theatrically through I Know A Song That’ll Get On Your Nerves is a real highlight, and proof of what could happen if Brand had more faith in her voice. Plus, it’s nice to see another comedian do Joe Pasquale’s material for a change.
Her own characters tend to offer more, although again, not consistently so. She captures comic drunkenness with the skill of a female WC Fields in her portrayal of tipsy office girl Caroline, choking back the vomit after a Bailey’s binge; while Captain Rosie Fielding, her butch Army type with no empathy for anything feminine is an aggressive delight, goading a female member of the audience for her soft ways. Such crotch-grabbing machismo reinforces the show’s running theme of unladylike behaviour – from the gruff Queen speaking like an East End publican to the sweary, no-nonsense Charlotte Church.
Away from that idea, the nun who can’t keep a straight face when supposedly delivering the solemn good news is also a favourite, her giggle that cannot be stifled proving hugely infectious, and again showcasing Brand’s mischievous side. It’s a shame this is only depicted on the giant cartoon TV which comprises Brand’s set, rather than in person, but the costume changes have to be covered somehow.
But against that engaging character, we have an American cable news journalist, a character so sketchily drawn it’s impossible to see resemblance to any real person. Improbably reporting on Bromley, she exchanges clunky banter with a prerecorded newsreader, desperately resorting to gratuitous swearing (the news network is called CNT, for example) in a bid to make this in any way interesting. The bid fails.
It’s a real mixed bag of a show, and Brand doesn’t have the presence to hold it together – although she is still frequently better than her material. In an intimate arts centre, where expectations might be lower and auditoria fuller, this would probably work better. But as it is, there’s a sense Brand, though she has her moments, isn’t yet ready for the big stage.
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This seems a pretty balanced review, so it's a bit disappointing to hear it's not quite up to scratch.
Katy Brand: loud, rude, brash and brilliant Katy Brand has poked merciless fun at celebrities from Beyoncé to Kate Moss. But as she takes her 'Big Ass Show’ on the road, who’s next ?
Dominic Cavendish
10 May 2010
telegraph.co.uk
A quick question for you: what have Lily Allen, Jennifer Aniston, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Keira Knightley, Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Kate Winslet all got in common? The answer, besides the obvious fact that they’re all women and all famous, is that they’ve all been sent up something rotten by Katy Brand.
Across a range of pithy parodies and lethally assured spoofs for her ITV2 series Katy Brand’s Big Ass Show – a sizeable, partly re-scripted selection of which is now coming to a playhouse near you – Brand, 31, has gatecrashed the VIP area of popular culture and caused merry, disrespectful havoc. She doesn’t only attach her talent for mockery to the most inescapable celebs around – other characters in her roster include a terrifyingly butch British Army TV presenter called Captain Rosie, a dim-witted Olympics hopeful from East London, and the Queen, who’s portrayed, ludicrously, as a gruff cockney gangster. And yet it’s Brand’s array of puffed-up pop stars, Hollywood divas and Heat magazine regulars that have established her as a comic force to be reckoned with, earning her a British Comedy Award in 2008. Even mainstream TV impression shows, you feel, would have struggled to get under the skin of Brand’s targets to quite such effect – and yet this larger-than-life comedian isn’t even attempting accurate take-offs.
“I’m not remotely interested in doing straightforward impersonations,” she explains shortly after coming offstage at the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon, following an evening of frenetic costume-changes and deft video interludes. “I try to find one silly thing about a celebrity and then make it bigger and bigger until it takes on a life of its own.”
Brand, who grew up in Oxfod and Amersham, has come a long way very quickly considering she only decided to make a go of comedy seven years ago. She had tried her hand during her student days at Oxford, where she studied theology – a degree, she says, that “put paid to my Christian beliefs” – before spending several years in TV production. An early inspiration for her wicked irreverence was the cult Channel 4 series Bo’ Selecta!, which encouraged her to kick against the prevailing tastes in sketch comedy: “The fashion then was to be quite whimsical and surreal,” she says. “That didn’t suit me at all. One day I started improvising a Charlotte Church monologue – it was back when she was still thought to be quite a nice innocent girl – and I did her as this loudmouth Cardiff drunk. That really clicked. And around the same time I was reading lots of Kate Winslet interviews where she kept on talking about being normal, and that made me laugh. I realised I should do what I found funny – which was celebrity satire.” In 2005, she cooked up a successful Edinburgh Fringe show, Celebrities are Gods, which paved the way for her TV vehicle, the third series of which ran last year.
Although her spoofs include male stars too, some have suggested that an undercurrent of unsisterly envy runs through her material. “I’ve been accused of being nasty to female celebrities because I don’t like them or I’m jealous, even that I’m misogynist,” she says. She received welcome support from Emma Thompson, with whom she talked it all over during the filming of Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, in which she enjoys a sizeable minor role as Miss Turvey, nasty henchwoman to Mrs Big. “She said women should be able to tease each other. I found that reassuring. I think women are robust enough to be able to laugh at themselves and say “We’re not perfect but we’re all right”.”
Articulate and considered in conversation – not remotely given to the oiky, abrasive manner she likes to flaunt on screen – the relative sophistication of Brand’s act has been overlooked by some critics, she believes, simply because of the channel she’s on. “I think some people assumed that because I was on ITV2 I was stupid, trashy or lowbrow. I almost became the Katie Price of comedy during the first year, which was frustrating. I love being silly, loud, noisy, naughty and colourful – but I think I produced a smart show with smart writing. Over the course of three series, I hope we’ve made people realise that.”
Sadly for its growing army of fans, there will be no further series of Big Ass – the live tour will conclude this chapter in her career, and she’s already working on new TV projects. Why? “The number of celebrities I can do is running out,” she says, laughing. “I’ve done nearly every high-charting pop star there is.
Also, celebrities are becoming much more wary about giving away personal idiosyncrasies – and people who read those magazines are developing their own sense of irony and satire about it all. In a way I think we’re entering an era of post-celebrity now. No one’s quite sure yet what it is we’re dealing with.”
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