Jo Neary

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.

"[3] 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.

[5] In 2001, Neary teamed up with fellow Brighton character comedian, Graham Darg, to create Sean Hard vs Craft Woman, which they performed at Komedia Southside in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In Neary's debut Edinburgh solo show in 2004, she appeared as multiple characters, including Mr Timkins (a sly cat mourning the recent loss of his "dingle"), a bespectacled dolphin commenting on news stories from a soggy newspaper, and her own mother and grandmother.

She created a cast of new characters, including Les Miserables, the Aussie comic, Lee, an 11-year-old deer, who is looking forward to starting rutting even though he doesn't know quite what it entails, and Fiona, the gap-year student who likes bongos but is worried about global dimming.

Alongside the familiar characters, such as Celia Johnson, she created Chris, a swinger from Portslade, Björk singing a song about the property market, and Carol Streep, a nervous woman giving a talk on sex aids.

The show was framed with readings from Neary's own teenage diaries, with stories of "life in Eighties Cornwall with a loose tooth and Lady Di haircut and the many boys that steadfastly ignored her.

"[12] Stephanie Merritt reviewed the show in The Observer: "For character comedy that is glorious fun with no underlying point whatsoever, Joanna Neary's Little Moments (Pleasance) would be hard to better.

In one new sketch, written by Joseph Nixon, she appeared as a Katharine Hepburn type American actress, who says "My only regret is turning down Gone with the Wind... and sleeping with Hitler."

These were described by Colin Bramwell in Exeunt: "There are many memorable characters on offer here: Mr. Eddy, the youth club leader who annunciates each word with a new dance move; Eva, the madrigal-adapting new-girl from exotic Birmingham; Diana, the centrepiece of the story, who enjoys singing rude songs on the toilet and making things out of Weetabix boxes, and who fancies Gary, who knows the word for kite in Swahili... To effortlessly switch between a whole ensemble of characters takes considerable skill, and Neary pulls it off with no small amount of aplomb.

"[17] In the Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish declared, "Her idea of crossing Celia Johnson's character from Brief Encounter with a contemporary (trapped) housewife – relaying her diary's 1940s-styled entries to us throughout the show – is so inspired, and beautifully executed, it deserves its own Radio 4 series.

The show features "topical talks, showbiz exclusives, celebrity interviews – plus a local locksmith's bawdy confessions, a recipe for air soup, and a photograph of a conker.

Tim Wilcock described the show in Fringe Review: "art and education emerge as the twin themes of this really wacky and almost anarchic hour of character comedy from a very talented young comedienne that comes thoroughly recommended.

[21] In 2011, Brimfield staged a live performance, Barbara Hepworth > Henry Moore, at the ICA as part of Bob and Roberta Smith's exhibition "Women Should Be in Charge".