Jo knows that a well delivered joke can act as a jab to those who wish to put you down or catch you off guard. She suggests having a wisecrack ready to whip out at any malicious moment. When humour can turn the tide, Jo says to have your paddle ready!
Jo Brand is a Legendary comic who rose from her work as a mainstay on London’s late 80’s Comedy Circuit to become a legend. Throughout her career, Jo has built her Brand as a brilliant and bold comic on the stage who can handle hecklers better than most. Before her time as one of the country’s top comics, Jo worked as a psychiatric nurse. It was there that she was able to hone her sense of humour as a sharp shield from her surroundings.
“I think humour is so extraordinarily helpful, like, particularly in work, you know, for me, having been a nurse, and you’ll find, I think the most stressful people’s jobs are, the more dark their humour is… that’s the level of sort of defensive humour that you develop, sometimes to deal with something so catastrophic.”
Not only can a punchline act as protectant, Jo says it can jab back as well. When hecklers and hooligans look to put you down, humour can act as a deterrent that can disarm the harshest bully’s bite. Not only can humour act as armour, it can also act has the thread that connects humanity in the harshest of happenings. For Jo, humour is the language of connection whether with her audience or patients. Humour holds the whole thing together
“I think humour is so knitted into the fabric of everything we are and everything we do, that if you kind of extracted it with a big humour, Hoover, it would be hard to tell what was left really.”
Join Jo this week on The Humourology Podcast as she shares years of experience from the stage and discusses the benefits of a sense of humour for your mental health and happiness.
Thank you for the continuing wonderful positive feedback for Season Two. Please tell your friends and family and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Spread the message about what we can learn from the love of laughter.
See you next Tuesday.
Warmest,
Paul x
