Squealing, laughing, yelling children fill the background when I have a chat with Jo Brand prior to her charity gig this Sunday.

She is in a soft play area, visiting friends in Beckenham, and her two daughters Maisie and Eliza are having a ball.

This is not the Jo Brand I expected. The needle sharp comedian with a tongue that can lash a heckler at 30 paces is, like many women, a busy working mother.

Her children have brought her and husband Bernie Bourke much joy and widened her material.

"Sorry about the noise, the kids are going mental!

"Having the girls has only changed my act to the extent that I have more to talk about.

"I talk about my life and views on things that now include parenting and children," she says.

Just last weekend the encounter with style gurus Trinny and Susannah was voted second in the Bitchiest Ever TV Moments.

Was that really as bad as it looked and has it changed her dress sense?

"No, I knew what to expect.

"I've had these big knockers for years and I coped with all the fuss from the two of them.

"They were fine, very nice.

I really am not that bothered with fashion as you can tell," she laughs.

What about the strange furry outfit in her publicity picture for the charity event?

"Oh that was me mucking around at the photo shoot. It was a friend's fluffy, grey anorak and I pinched it and did a silly face, and chose that picture," she explains.

In her busy life she has found time to organise the charity show for causes that are close to her heart King's College Hospital Silver Lining Fund and Dulwich Village Pre-School.

Her children were born at King's College and she resides in East Dulwich.

An avid reader, Jo has been selected as a judge for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

"I've 45 books to read in six weeks, about 20 left I think to go. I'm a big Dickens fan; I love George Orwell and Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse books."

Jo Brand is no stranger to Croydon, but she recalls a performance "ages ago" when she was doing stand-up for a staff do at Allders.

"I'll never forget that night. I'd only been on about five minutes when suddenly everyone got up and started to leave. Nobody wanted to miss the last train home!" she says.

She entertains thousands of people with television and theatre work, but what amuses Jo Brand?

"I listen to Radio 5, the live talk shows and I'm a big Elvis Costello fan and music from the punk era, which was my era, and some classical music but I can't stand jazz!"

A former psychiatric nurse, her career has been built on her astute observations of life and people, all dressed with a large serving of bluntness.

I get the impression she has no time for the hangers on and precious people in the entertainment industry.

Regarding charity work she is always "up for it", and will be running the London Marathon for Comic Relief.

She has coerced fellow stand-up artists to raise money at Fairfield Concert Hall on Sunday, March 13, at 8pm, including Bill Bailey, Mark Steel and Arthur Smith.

Tickets are £15 available from the box office on 020 8688 9291.