I’m Joanna Neary. I’m a comedian from Cornwall and also Coventry.

You can see me here in this sketch with Robert Webb for That Mitchell And Webb Look. After doing a tour of libraries last year, I found out that they use this sketch in training staff on what not to do. FOR THE INSULTING LIBRARIAN SKETCH, CLICK HERE

As well as doing live comedy, TV, film and radio, I also make podcasts, run an alternative comedy night, write and create illustrations for publications (including Aquila magazine) and have exhibitions.

My character comedy creations include Celia Jesson; Beleaguered Housewife, an out-of-control Bjork with an opinion on Cream Teas and wafty craft person Peg Bird (loving homage to the folks at the magnificent Charleston Farmhouse) for stage, screen and radio. There’s a version of Celia on That Mitchell & Webb look, in a sketch about Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca on Youtube here. 

You can more recently catch Joanna in How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge), an utterly brilliant comedy series, in which she plays a small role as a struggling alcoholic book group member, who gets farted at.

Previous tv and film roles include Joe Wrights’ Darkest Hour, Armando Iannucci’s Time Trumpet, and six series of Ideal as the outsider apologetic maniac Judith (sorry).

For 2026, Joanna has a new comedy show (currently a work in progress) ‘Inky Sticks’ about the science of art and her new podcast ‘Two Strings and Paint Tins’ available in all the usual pod places. She’s also another dishevelled and harrowed housewife in a new UK TV show but it’s not been announced yet.

For ‘A Thousand Fantastic Flourishes’ blog on Substack and links to all latest shows and events, PLEASE CLICK HERE. 

Last autumn saw the long anticipated and wonderfully received Ideal, starring Johnny Vegas and written and directed by Graham Duff on a 35+ date tour – a stage show celebrating 20 years since the TV series aired, in which Joanna played country-core goth Judith (for six series, she joined the show for Series 2 onwards, sorry) as well as some theatrical costumed ghouls and visions. All seven series are now on BBC iplayer if you’re in the UK. here is a clip of a scene that was added at the last minute while we were filming in Manchester.

If you want to hear someone experimenting, have a look at Podcasts. Joanna’s creations and co-creations include an attempt to do book reviews by an ordinary housewife, her husband and their neighbours; the character comedy  ‘Wife On Earth’ with Ben Crompton as Russell Nigels and Al Kerr as Fred. 

Sign up for occasional missives and noteworthy newsletters. Meanwhile, Joanna is still waiting for it to be in fashion to have hair like Jimmy Page. Or Julius Caesar. Or Lovejoy. Etc.

On Joanna’s show ‘Wasp In A Cardigan’ – ‘More surgically precise strangeness from the Exene Cervenka of quirky character comedy.’ Stewart Lee