JO Brand is one fat mama. Is this humorous? Yes, indeed, it seems, but only if the lady herself is making all the jokes. She does this very often. In fact, Jo Brand's entire stand-up comedy routine gravitates heavily around the enormity of her own physical ego. If you won the lottery, Jo, what would be your biggest extravagance? Paying a thin person to collect my fish suppers. Do you exercise? Yes, I lie down. And what is your greatest fear? Not being able to get back up. Et cetera . . .
In fact, the only time Brand is not babbling about blubber is when regaling us with anecdotes about feminine hygiene. Yes, life is rich with humour, but do we really have to take everything in our stride?
Strangely, such fare has satisfied a hungry public. From the open mic in comedy clubs, she has graduated to casting her shadow on such diverse TV fare as Have I Got News For You and They Think It's All Over, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and Countdown, to hosting Commercial Breakdown, to starring in her own show, Through The Cakehole. There's also her spot as anchor woman - oh, please! - on the forthcoming BBC1 series Head On Comedy.
Comedy peers, too, have shown appreciation: already she has two British Comedy Awards for Best Live Performer bending the plank above her gas fire.
Born in Clapham, South London, in 1958, Brand's first job was as house mother in a Dr Barnardo's home. This inspired her to study psychiatric nursing at Brunel University and the Maudsley Hospital in London, and it wasn't until 1988 that she turned to comedy as a full-time bread-bin filler. Despite protestations usque ad nauseam that all mankind is repelled by her Jabba the Hut image, she enjoys a happy married life in the sleepy hollows of Shropshire with husband, Bernie Bourke, the psychiatric nurse with whom she was formally spliced in December 1997.
But sleepy hollows are oft blown by indignant bellows. Two months ago Brand set about denouncing the Harvey Nichols' ad campaign in which fat people were described as''gross'', arguing the ads displayed ''Nazism about appearance''. Quite forgotten was the fact obesity is, indeed, aesthetically unpleasing, but more importantly downright unhealthy - ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you fat is indeed big but not exceedingly clever. In many ways the jolly japery espoused by Brand's hatch is as unhealthy as the bony buns modelled by air-munching catwalk kittens.
The only difference between Bernard Manning and Jo Brand is that Manning, being a man, is genuinely distraught when he bemoans the visual terrors of the outsized female form.
One suspects, however, that Brand's baggy-jumpered, Doc-Martened feminist diatripe (sic) is a mite more cuddly on the inside. Brand confesses contentment with life's lot, adding: ''I think the big thing a lot of people miss out on in life is actually realising when they're all right.''
Of course, realising we're all okay would be easier without larger-than-life personalities insisting that excess comfort zones are to be poked fun at rather than jogged off.
n Jo Brand presents The Horror of . . . (BBC1, 8.00pm), a new series about groovy and ghastly life experiences which this week investigates the manifold pleasures and pitfalls of communal living - such as knowing where to hide your chocolate-biccie stash from us hard- working blokes.
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