“IT was easier than having to go out in clean clothes,” says Jo Brand, explaining how her career expanded to embrace writing novels.

Her third, The More You Ignore Me, is set in Herefordshire, somewhere she knows well and has connections with – she is a patron of The Courtyard and of Megan Baker House in Leominster, and her mother lives locally.

In the novel, Jo draws on her experience as a psychiatric nurse to explore how mental illness affects families.

Fifteen-year-old Alice feels isolated, a target for bullies, because her mother, Gina, suffers psychotic episodes, one of which finds her naked as a jaybird on the roof, nursing an obsessive passion for the local television weather forecaster and refusing to come down.

Unable to see any alternative, her husband Keith has Gina sectioned, only to find himself facing the wrath of Gina’s family.

In the midst of the maelstrom of Gina’s madness, Alice suddenly finds an escape when she comes across Morrisey and recognises a kindred spirit. If only she can see him, she will get through.

But Alice decides, on Gina’s release, that a mad mother is better than a mother who appears to feel nothing, and persuades the medics to reduce her medication. When Gina then discovers Alice’s Morrisey memorabilia, it sparks a new obsession, and relationships take another seismic shift.

The suggestion that medication might not be the best treatment is given a light touch, but Jo admits: “I have very mixed feelings about drugs. They do dampen down some of the symptoms but the price is horrible side-effects and the loss of personality.

“I wanted to get across the message that when someone in the family is mentally ill, it has very powerful negative effects on the extended family.”

Jo, whose reputation as a stand-up is legendary, is also something of a familiar figure on TV screens.

There was Comic Relief Does Fame Academy, in which she lasted three days, Play it Again as she returned to the keyboard 30 years after last playing to learn to play the organ, and most recently, and perhaps memorably, Let’s Dance for Comic Relief performing an unforgettable version of Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Jo will be talking to Francine Stock about The More You Ignore Me at Hay Festival on Friday, May 29, the day after publication.

Order The More You Ignore Me, £12.99, offer price £11.69, post and packing free, from the Hereford Times Bookshop on 08700 713317 or send your cheque/postal order made payable to Hereford Times Bookshop to: Hereford Times Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston, TR13 0TP. Supplied subject to availability.