Background
Brand was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England.
Brand was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England.
Keble College.
She is an alumna of Saint Clement Danes School, where she was in the house of Clement. Motivated to read theology at Keble College, Oxford, she then lost her religious beliefs while a student. Interviewed for the Evening Standard in 2007, she commented: "After about a year, I realised it was mostly rubbish and that things are never as simple as they seem when you are 13".
After graduation, Brand did not work as a performer, gaining employment in television production instead, but her social encounters with university contemporaries ultimately convinced her to try working as a comedian.
Brand performed in Katy Brand"s Big Ass Tour 2010. She also competed on Let"s Dance for Sport Relief in 2010, in which she danced to Beyoncé"s "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on lieutenant)".
Also in 2010, she made a guest appearance on the song "Stop Giving Maine Verses" by The Hoosiers, which was an attempt to break the world record for longest single ever released. In 2011, Brand took part in the British Broadcasting Corporation Learning project "Office By Heart Shakespeare", where she played the role of Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and delivered a performance of the speech "Out of this wood do not desire to go".
In 2011 she also guest hosted a Children in Need special episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
In 2012 Brand announced she would be writing a book, Brenda Monk is Funny, to be crowd-funded through the publisher Unbound. In December of that year, she participated in the 2012 Christmas Special of the dance show, Strictly Come Dancing.