Mellow stage for fiery Brand

Jo Brand's top billing at this Breakthrough Breast Cancer show isn't the first time she's done her bit for the charity. "I did a cookery book," she says. "I made a hideous pudding." Bread and butter, for the record.

Much of her material remains just as defiantly indigestible, as the audience for the headline event of the London Comedy Festival will discover. Example: "Did you know you can get insured against being raped in South Africa in case you get HIV and need hospital treatment - which is a hideous idea: you're walking down the road and some bloke jumps out from behind a bush and you're thinking, 'f*** me, there goes my no-claims bonus'".

Yet stand-up's Queen of Mean professes not to be bitter. "My life is rather nice," she says. "Anyway, I'd hardly tell you if it was crap, would I?"

It is tempting to attribute her almost alarming mellowing to domestic contentment and age - she is now 44, married to psychiatric nurse Bernie Bourke and mother to 14-month-old Masie. But she says: "I've never been the Jo Brand you see on stage. Life would have been unbearable. I never thought I was the comedy equivalent of Eva Braun. There was always strong stuff, but its leavened with, 'don't you realise I'm taking the piss?'"

She rarely appears in the capital now. "It's seen as a career path. Comics think, 'Ooh, we can get on telly in six months'. People are more businesslike. I'm also paranoid about reviews, they're so cynical."

She admits to being lazy: "I used to let other people organise my life, but they make money out of you, and I don't want to do 47 dates in Poland. I'd rather do 25 near my house."