Award-winning comic Katy Brand pays homage to her obsession – a monster hit and work of genius with much to say about sex, love, romance, rights and responsibilities: Dirty Dancing.

Interweaving clips from the film and climaxing in a recreation of the famous The Time of My Life duet, this live event will make you laugh, cry and think a little deeper about one of your favourite movies.

Katy Brand is one of our most celebrated talents – a comedian, actor, novelist and playwright whose journey from fringe sketch comic to national sensation acting alongside David Mitchell and Emma Thompson and heading her own eponymous ITV comedy series.

She joins How To Academy to reveal how her lifelong obsession with Dirty Dancing has made her who she is today – and to share with us the film’s legacy as a piece of film-making with a social agenda that many will miss on first viewing. From pushing women’s stories to the forefront of commercial cinema, to its ‘Gold Standard’ depiction of abortion according to leading pro-choice campaigners, and its fresh and powerful take on the classic ‘coming of age’ story told from a naïve but idealistic 17-year-old girl’s point of view.

One of the most celebrated and viewed films ever made is about to have the time of its life.

Praise for Dirty Dancing and Me:

It takes a true obsessive to open the mind especially to something one has always taken for granted. I knew I loved DIRTY DANCING but I didn’t know why. Now, thanks to Katy Brand’s hilarious, touching, bonkersly true book, I do. One of the best reads of the year.’ - Emma Thompson

‘This is a book to massively enjoy (as I did) and then immediately hand on to your daughter (as I did)! I’m off to watch Dirty Dancing again immediately, and so will you when you read this gem.’ - Dawn French

‘An honest, moving, hilarious journey into how our youthful passions shape the people we become. Katy is the finest dance partner to take you on this journey.’ - Shappi Khorsandi

‘A joyous, funny, personal page-turner. I read it in one sitting.’ - Deborah Frances-White, The Guilty Feminist

‘A witty, endearing and surprisingly political take on her lifelong obsession with Dirty Dancing’ - The Bookseller

Katy Brand is an award-winning writer, comedian and actor. After starting to write and perform comedy as a student at Oxford University, she became a regular on the UK live sketch comedy scene. In 2005 she took her debut Edinburgh show CELEBRITIES ARE GODS to the Fringe which was picked up for Channel 4 (SLAP). This later became her award-winning ITV sketch show, KATY BRAND’S BIG ASS SHOW, which she devised, wrote and starred in. It ran for three series and later became a nationwide live tour.