Why Jo Brand didn’t jitterbug at brain injury dance marathon
COMEDIENNE Jo Brand cheered dancers battling through a gruelling eight hours of non-stop tripping the light fantastic raising funds for East London’s unique brain injury centre. But she admitted she wouldn’t be joining in, afraid of losing “too many calories”!
COMEDIENNE Jo Brand cheered dancers battling through a gruelling eight hours of non-stop tripping the light fantastic raising funds for East London’s unique brain injury centre.
But she admitted she wouldn’t be joining in, afraid of losing “too many calories”!
The marathon’ jitterbug jiving held at Hoxton Hall raised �15,000 for the nearby Headway East London centre in Shoreditch, with 100 supporters and well-wishers joining in.
They jived the night away, or just cheered on from the side. Dances included jive and swing taught by Swing Patrol and hip-hop to electric pop, with music by the eight-piece Funk Soul Brothers band and DJs.
The highlight was the charity’s patron Jo Brand turning up to give a 20-minute stand-up routine egging the dancers to carry on through the pain barrier.’
“I like watching other people exercising when I don’t have to,” Brand admitted afterwards. “They’d been dancing six hours already when I got here.
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“I expected to find them wilting on the floor and groaning and being carried off on stretchers.”
She added: “I was going to try and dance, but I’m a bit scared I’ll use up too many calories.”
The funds raised are going towards physical therapies like neuro-physiotherapy, yoga and cranial sacral, which help brain injury victims speed up their recovery to live more independently.