Born in
Newcastle upon Tyne on 1 February 1900 (and, purportedly, relocated three weeks later), Young was the daughter of music hall performers Nellie Blanche C. (née Parker) and Charles Alfred Romaine Wragg, known professionally as Charles Pastor.). Speaking with reporter Beverly Howells almost eight decades later, Young acknowledged that, given her parents' continued performing, it was "really my grandmother who provided any motherly care I received as a child." She was educated at convents in
Bournemouth and in
France. On Tuesday 22 September 1936, the
BBC aired Young's "satirical revue" entitled
Fictional Fame on Parade (with music by Nene Smith), featuring a cast including, among others, Young,
Edward Cooper,
Marie Dainton, and the
BBC Variety Orchestra, conducted by
Charles Shadwell. In 1938, Young was cast in radio adaptations of two well-known British novels:
P. G. Wodehouse's
Sam the Sudden (adapted by Jack Inglis as
Semi-Detached), and, in serialized form,
Charles Reade's
The Cloister and the Hearth, broadcast on 12 consecutive Sundays, beginning on 15 October. In December, an original radio drama penned by
Leslie Stokes,
The Snowman, starred Holland Bennett,
Alec Guinness,
Betty Jardine,
Mary Merrall, Joan Young,
Ernest Jay, and G. R. Schjelderup. Reviewing the 1961 revival of
Shaw's
Heartbreak House staged at
Wyndham's Theatre,
Stage and Television Today's R. B. Marriott rated Young's performance the "best
Nurse Guiness I have seen". The following year, Young—as aggrieved in-law Garnet Hadfield—went head to head with
Laurence Olivier's Fred Midway in the London production of
David Turner's
Semi-Detached. Amidst a generally mixed review of "The Room", a season 1 episode of
James MacTaggart's 1964 series,
Teletale,
Stage and Television Today critic Marjorie Morris makes note of the frustrating dilemma posed by the episode's seemingly saving grace being all but negated by its miserly deployment. Joan Young gave a powerful performance as Madame Darbedat. It was really
too good, because I wanted to see more of her and felt cheated when I didn't. In 1980, the 80-year-old Young amassed two notable credits to round out a six-decade-plus career; first, by once again reprising her signature
Big Bad Mouse role alongside fellow first-nighters
Jimmy Edwards and
Eric Sykes, ==Personal life and death==