Russell Brand, Arena, Nottingham

February 20 2009

RUSSELL Brand's five year rise to fame is bookended with irritation: Big Brother's Big Mouth and Sachsgate.
That first significant TV appearance on Big Brother's E4 side show presented an overconfident, manufactured rock'n'roll fop. So annoying was he, that I kept his gradual elevation to comedy star, best-selling writer and Hollywood actor at a distance. But with a date at our Arena selling-out as fast as any Lee Evans or Rick Gervais show, it was time to see what the fuss was all about.
I tried as best I could to go with an open mind, though the reports that Sachsgate formed an integral part of his 90 minute routine lowered expectations somewhat.
Indeed Brand saw fit to proudly boast of the whole episode, footage of the TV news reports on a huge video screen was followed with him singing "I am the news" to the News At Ten theme.
After an encouraging opening wander right into the audience - although the interaction didn't exactly bristle with wit - he spent the next 30 minutes going over the media hysteria that followed his radio gaffe. "It was a statistical inevitability that I'd have sex with the granddaughter of a former sitcom star" he said, swaggering across a bare stage with his trademark black leather jacket and skin-tight "ladies'" leggings.
Brand made it clear that it was Jonathan Ross who had started it and the editor of the pre-recorded radio show was also to blame. But he wasn't back-tracking. "I still think it was funny," he says, replaying the video of his spontaneous song from the phone call to Andrew Sachs' ansaphone.
He recalls the text from Noel Gallagher regarding the news story – a cutting of which is projected on to the screen – of a Brand lookalike rendered jobless by the affair. Gallagher quipped: "Hope you're proud of yourself."
The middle third of the set was taken up by his dismal job at the MTV Video Music Awards last September in the States during which he called George Bush a "retarded cowboy". It prompted death threats, some of which he read out. Then he proceeded to run through all the gags he'd written for the broadcast. Just in case you missed it, one assumes. It's not what one would call new material.
Sex played its part, rather inevitably for the final third, referencing his "fame wand", a maternal fantasy about Helen Mirren and – ooh controversial – the Queen. Shocking if you've been raised on a diet of the Chuckle Brothers.
It's not comedy in the traditional sense. Jokes are few. And Brand doesn't do observational. It's all about "me, me, me". Something he justifies because he is "mentally ill" and "narcissistic".
After 90 minutes – there's no encore – he signs off by inviting girls backstage for a threesome. I don't think he's joking, either.
But was it funny? The 6,000 in the Arena (it wasn't intended to sell to capacity) seemed to think so. For the most part.
I found the narcissism rather dull.
Most amusing was the security staff repeatedly trying to stop people taking photographs. As pointless an exercise as asking Brand to talk about someone else.

Russell Brand - really?

February 2009


DO not for one second think that Russell Brand has followed Jonathan Ross's example and put the whole Manuelgate scandal behind him.
Rather the opposite.
On the current tour, which lands at the Trent FM Arena next Friday night, he has the audacity to use the pair's radio gaffe to shore up his show.
It's another reason to resent the success of the omnipotent, foppish, self-confessed sex addict.
Not so much because what he and Ross did was obnoxious, over the line and unfunny – we're sick of hearing about!
That said, I've never understood Russell Brand anyway. Or rather his appeal.
Ever since he appeared on Big Mouth – the unnecessary second side dish to the main Big Brother programme – in 2004, irritation turned to bafflement as his star rose from TV series, Radio 2 show, chart-topping DVDs, best-selling and critically acclaimed book, sell-out tours, even Hollywood movies.
That's why I'll be going along to the Arena next Friday – to see if I get the joke.
But I may have mis-timed it, reckons Darrell Martin, boss of Nottingham's Just The Tonic.
"He may be a bit self-indulgent," warns the man who booked him years ago for shows in London.
"He may be pandering to a self-belief that he has an interesting rock 'n' roll lifestyle in comparison to everyone else's plain lives."
But he was – probably still is – a funny man.
Not that it was always so.
Martin, who has been putting on comedy in the city for 15 years, first saw him pre-fame at the Edinburgh festival.
"It was years ago and he had apparently gone on stage in a drunken (or something) mess and started ranting at the audience.
"He would come on stage with a bag over his head and breath like the elephant man only to pull it off and reveal himself to be a bit of a looker.
"The general impression was that he was a bit of an idiot who loved himself a bit too much.
"He wasn't really that much of a comedian, more like a big show-off. But then he had a bit of a transformation.
"Word got out that he was getting better. When I did a couple of huge gigs in the West End in 2004, a promoter recommended that I give Russell a go. I reluctantly put him on.
"He was the opening act and I think it was the biggest gig he'd done at that point. I was surprised at how funny he was. And it wasn't all about himself."
The dandy goth look, the black skinny jeans, wild hair and eye liner, wasn't evident back then.
"He never used to dress like he does now and didn't talk all Dickensian either. I think he took a few influences from others on the circuit and fused these."
He adds: "I had only seen him a few times at Edinburgh prior to this and it was always a car crash. So I never booked him.
"I tried a few times to get him to play the club after the London shows but he was always waiting to find out about TV schedules so I couldn't get a date.
"It was around the time he started doing Big Brother's Big Mouth."
He would call in a favour from Brand in 2006 – along with Ricky Gervais, Sean Lock, Tim Vine and Stewart Lee – to play two shows, again in London, to raise cash for Just The Tonic. The closure of Cabaret in Fletcher Gate had left the club without a home.
"He was really good," he says.
"I know he's had a few issues that have made him a bit annoying but he'd be the first to admit that."
Then he adds: "I would never leave him alone with a girlfriend..."

Russell Brand, Trent FM Arena, Friday February 20, £24.50, 08444 124624 or 08700 112626.