The reason I used a name was because I was a nurse at the time, and I didn't want my name in Timeout and people from working coming along and taking the piss.

She thus faced her first live audience with a bursting bladder. She was part of the British alternative comedy movement working in London alternative comedy clubs and appearing initially on the Saturday Live television show. She then worked as a psychiatric nurse for ten years at the South London Bethlem Cefn Coed Hospital in Swansea and Maudsley Hospital in South London.

In 2003 Jo Brand was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. Commencing her entertainment career with a move from psychiatric nursing to the alternative comedy stand-up scene and early performances on Saturday Live Jo Brand went on to appear on The Brain Drain Channel 4's Jo Brand Through the Cakehole Getting On and various television appearances including as a regular guest on QI.