Jen Brister
Acting
Biography
Jennifer Helen Brister is a British stand-up comedian, writer and actor from London. Brister studied drama at Middlesex University, London, where, in the mid-1990s, she took a course in stand-up comedy, the only one of its kind at the time in the UK. Other famous graduates include Alan Carr, Dan Renton Skinner of the Dutch Elm Conservatoire and Shooting Stars, and Clare Warde of the Runaway Lovers. Brister's first gig was at the end of her third year at university in 1996, at the King's Head in Crouch End, London. She has performed internationally including at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2011 and 2014, at the Adelaide Festival in 2011 and 2012, as well as numerous times at the Edinburgh Festival. She regularly performs at clubs around the UK including Banana Cabaret, The Comedy Store (London), the Glee Clubs, Frog & Bucket, and Up the Creek. She toured the UK for the first time in 2018 with her show Meaningless. Since 2022 she has been touring the UK again with her show The Optimist. Her comedy hero is Victoria Wood.
Known For
Comedy quiz show full of quirky facts, in which contestants are rewarded more if their answers are 'quite interesting'.
QI
Each week a group of four famous faces go toe to toe in testing their general knowledge skills in a variety of entertaining games.
Richard Osman's House of Games
Topical comedy-quiz show featuring five guests competing to see who can remember the most about events of the week. A fast-paced, funny look at international affairs, politics, sport and entertainment news, we test just how well our contestants have been paying attention.
Have You Been Paying Attention?
Mock the Week is a British topical celebrity panel game hosted by Dara Ó Briain. The game is influenced by improvised topical stand-up comedy, with several rounds requiring players to deliver answers on unexpected subjects on the spur of the moment.
Mock the Week
Celebrity Mastermind is a British television quiz show broadcast by BBC television. The show is a spin-off of the long-running quiz show Mastermind, with the exception that all the contestants are celebrities. As with the main show, John Humphrys is the host and question-master. Magnus Magnusson was quizmaster on the 2003/04 episodes featuring Jonathan Meades as winner.
Celebrity Mastermind
Romesh Ranganathan takes charge of the back-stabbing big money game show. Can the contestants create a chain of answers and avoid the boot?
The Weakest Link
Sara Cox hosts this new book club bringing the nation together through sharing the pleasure of reading. Each edition features a celebrity panel discussing their favourite book and two review sections.
Between the Covers
A British stand-up comedy programme performed from the Hammersmith Apollo Theatre in west London.
Live at the Apollo
Rhod Gilbert's Growing Pains involves celebrity guests revisiting their teenage years. Each celebrity will take a trip down memory lane; competing across fashion, pop culture, retro gadgets, first loves, school reports and more to get their teenage years recognised as the most embarrassing by comedian Rhod Gilbert. With mystery guests popping up along the way, offering up further revelations the show celebrates those ultimate embarrassing teenage moments, and it's down to Rhod to judge which celebrity should be crowned 'winner'.
Rhod Gilbert's Growing Pains
Hosted by Josh Widdicombe and James Acaster, top comedians are posed absurd hypothetical situations and scored on how well they would deal with them. Over three rounds, two teams of comedians must think fast as they are faced with a series of completely made-up scenarios and interrogated on their approach to each one. Host Josh Widdicombe poses the questions and interrogates the guests' methods, whilst James Acaster, as arbiter of the Hypotheticals, deals with the guests quibbles and queries and doles out the points.
Hypothetical
Famous faces join Channel 4's hit real-life thriller, for Stand Up To Cancer. Can they survive 14 days on the run from an elite team of hunters?
Celebrity Hunted
A fractured family are forced to face their demons, metaphorically and literally, as they unwittingly become embroiled in a man's attempt to prove the existence of the supernatural in order to overturn a friend's murder conviction.
Lair
Lesbian director Brigid McFall and lesbian photographer Vic Lentaigne create a series of intimate, revealing portraits of what it means to be lesbian in 2022, exploring why it is that so many young women who are sexually attracted to other women now prefer to identify as queer.
Where Have All the Lesbians Gone?
If middle age has taught Jen Brister anything, it’s that optimism does not come naturally to her. In fact it’s fair to say that her cup is very much half empty and she’s making no attempt to fill it. Can Jen work against her natural instincts and finally see the light? Or will she stay the same old pessimistic naysayer she’s always been. I mean, I think we know the answer to that, but let’s try and be optimistic.
Jen Brister: The Optimist
Bob Kenner is a superhero. He lives in Peckham. This is the first time he has granted an interview.
SuperBob
Rising comedy star and author of 'The Other Mother' Jen Brister performs her critically acclaimed show. As seen on Live at the Apollo (BBC2), Frankie Boyles's New World Order (BBC2), Sara Pascoe's Comedy Lectures (Dave) and Hypothetical (Dave), Jen uses her hilarious ranting to rail against period poverty, the perimenopause and why her Mum needs to get out of her bloody house now.