Jo Neary

Joanna Neary is a British comedian, writer and actress. Her solo, character-based stage shows include Youth Club and Joanna Neary Is Not Feeling Herself, which received a Perrier Best Newcomer award nomination in 2004. She has also appeared in the TV shows Time Trumpet, Angelo's, That Mitchell and Webb Look, Skins series three, Dogface, and, as the jumpy necrophiliac Judith, in Ideal. Radio credits include acting as an ensemble member of the cast in the first series of the Count Arthur Strong Radio Show, as well as appearing in numerous series of Out To Lunch.

Harry Deansway, writing in the Guardian, described Neary as 'a character actress par excellence; not only are her characters well observed and immaculately performed, but they are well written and, most importantly, funny....A Joyce Grenfell of our age.'

Joanna Neary grew up in Redruth in Cornwall. She told the West Briton, 'After leaving Pool School I did an art degree at Falmouth and became interested in performance art. I decided that people tying themselves together naked and walking across the Great Wall of China was the way to go.' She went on to study visual and performing arts at Brighton University, where she wrote plays and performed her first character-based comedy shows. As well as writing her own material, she also acted in plays and sketches written by Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon. Many of the songs in her shows are written by Mitchell. Neary has said, 'I don't like comic songs particularly but I do love singing and dancing about.'

In 1998-9, Neary played the female lead, a French femme fatale, in The Ministry of Biscuits, a dystopian comic musical by Brian Mitchell and Philip Reeve. 'Stop! Think before you eat that biscuit! Is it in any way fancy? If so, then you are a criminal! In post-war London, the Ministry of Biscuits casts its sinister shadow over every tea-time and elevenses in the land. Established to 'control biscuits, and to control the idea of biscuits,' it prohibits a decadent sweetmeats, such as the Gypsy Cream.'

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