Katy Brand
- 45 years old
- English
- Actor, writer and stand-up comedian
Press clippings
Katy Brand writes a comedy road movie, Libby And Joan Hit The Road
Katy Brand is writing her second film, the comedy road movie, Libby And Joan Hit The Road, following the success of her debut, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande.
British Comedy Guide, 26th January 2023Comedies up for British Independent Film Awards
Brian And Charles & Good Luck To You, Leo Grande are nominated for the British Independent Film Awards.
Chortle, 4th November 2022Good Luck To You, Leo Grande film review
A real eye-opener with a fantastic performance by Emma Thompson, who seemingly can't put a foot wrong.
Linda Marric, The Jewish Chronicle, 30th June 2022Good Luck To You, Leo Grande review
The endlessly versatile actor plays a reserved widow who hires a sex worker in this enjoyably subversive but not quite believable romp.
Mark Kermode, The Observer, 19th June 2022Good Luck To You, Leo Grande review
A sex comedy that is both liberating and hugely moving.
Dulcie Pearce, The Sun, 17th June 2022Good Luck To You, Leo Grande review
Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack star in this feel-good sex comedy, in which a middle-aged woman solicits a sex worker. Katy Brand writes and Sophie Hyde directs.
Euan Franklin, Culture Whisper, 15th June 2022Good Luck To You, Leo Grande review
Truthfully, the film is almost not a film at all, but a stage two-hander director Sophie Hyde works hard to give big-screen zing.
Danny Leigh, The Financial Times, 15th June 2022In a twist on the usual May-December romantic fiction trope, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande casts Emma Thompson as a retired religious education teacher who hires a sex worker to explore her never awakened sexual desires. Her gigolo of choice is about as far as it's possible to get from the sleazy, damaged hustler familiar from Jon Voight's turn in Midnight Cowboy though. In a modern age where high-end sex workers sell an experience via an app (and expect a modicum of understanding and respect from their clients), Thompso''s character, the pseudonymous Nancy, first meets the titular Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) in a smart hotel room, where she babbles nervously about his impressive vocabulary and her own sexual deficiencies while he calmly talks to her like a therapist trying to work through why she's never been able to achieve an orgasm.
It's all very civilised and director Sophie Hyde, working from a script by British TV comedian and writer Katy Brand, shoots it like a British romantic comedy, with some of the attendant stiltedness those films have. But as the characters get more intimate, so too does the film, with McCormack and, especially, Thompson cutting through the film's more mechanical execution to deliver rounded portraits of people yearning for human connection in a judgmental world.
Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 14th June 2022Sundance Film Festival 2022 review: Good Luck To You, Leo Grande
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is a warm and emotionally intelligent picture that tackles its themes of sex and self with an unwavering honesty.
Culture Fix, 24th January 2022Good Luck to You, Leo Grande review
Emma Thompson gives an emotionally generous performance as a former teacher seeking sexual gratification in an amusing and compassionate two-hander.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 23rd January 2022