Katy Brand

Katy Brand on Kate Moss and that Sport Relief dance

If Katy Brand were a band, she'd play every instrument. Equally at home playing the role of Her Majesty The Queen as she is Lady GaGa, the 31-year-old tours her Big Ass show from next month.

Video Clip: Greatest Song from a Rubbish Artist?

Here's a bit of web-exclusive fun for you: a clip filmed during the recording of Episode One. Who deserves the Lucas for Greatest Song from a Musical Artist Who is Otherwise Rubbish? Graham Linehan, James Corden and Katy Brand must decide...

Matt Lucas (Little Britain, Shooting Stars) with a new panel game. It's an awards show, the Lucases being awarded for the best, worst, ugliest, scariest, etc. Tonight's guests, comedian Katy Brand, actor and writer James Corden (Gavin & Stacey) and TV writer Graham Linehan (the immortal Father Ted, the sublime Black Books and the underrated The IT Crowd) nominate contenders then hand out Lucases for The Lamest Excuse of All Time, Most Pointless Member of the Royal Family and Greatest Song By a Musical Artist Who Is Otherwise Rubbish.

Does the world really need a new impressions show? Probably not, but this new vehicle for Jon Culshaw, along with Corrie refugee Debra Stephenson isn't too bad on the whole. Katy Brand and Kevin Bishop could learn a thing or two from this.

Katy Brand 0 - Lady Gaga 1

When we heard that comedian Katy Brand was back with a new TV series we weren't surprised to hear that she would be 'lampooning' Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga is an artist who very quickly transcended musician or simple popstar status and is now simply a part of mass pop culture, meaning that she is a perfect subject for someone like Brand whose gags play on recognition as much as (or more than) actual jokes.

The Broadcast Interview: Katy Brand

She's won the best female newcomer award and helped to put ITV2 on the map for comedy. Broadcast talks to Katy Brand about her rise from BBC runner to successful funny girl.

I've always given this the steer on the basis that it was, as one unnamed colleague put it, "possibly the worst thing on TV... ever", but, recommissioned for its third series, it tempted me. It's not, as it happens, the worst thing on TV, far from it, in fact, though judging by a few YouTube clips it has improved considerably. Juvenile the opening Lady Gaga pastiche may have been but I couldn't help but giggle at bits of it ("you keep on asking how/ this lady's so big/ then you remember it's because I'm wearing no pants/ when I'm on the bus"). Ditto, the Queen's motivational speech to the other royals ("I always give it 110 per cent - that's why I'm on top"), and the east London kid preparing for the Olympics by eating Olympic fries. It may not be Monty Python, but it ain't that bad.

The defendant this time in the crimes against comedy court is Katy Brand's Big Ass Show, which at least can't be done under the Trade Descriptions Act of 1968. Katy Brand indisputably has a big ass. And she does show it, though thankfully in moderation. But that does not make her funny. Not even remotely. Apparently she's guested with Chris Moyles, which makes all kinds of sense.

Brand can carry a tune, which at least gives her mickey-taking music parodies an air of competence markedly missing when she enters sketch-show territory. But her targets are so wide of the mark - there are way more deserving cases for having a pop at than Lady GaGa, Kanye West and Coldplay - that they end up looking like pale imitations of French And Saunders.

Katy Brand is back on ITV2 for a third series of sketches, and though she's shifting things around a bit - a "fine" Jennifer Aniston is the new "normal" Kate Winslet - she still has a canny ability to dismantle the silliness of celebrity.

Time for series three of this sketch series and Ms Brand is still failing to wow us. None of it is terribly original but at least the music parodies are halfway fun: Kanye West espouses the virtues of Autotune, and Lady Gaga sings about her own pointlessness.