Russell Brand

Russell Brand to haunt cinemas in Rentaghost revival

Russell Brand is set to play the deceased deadbeat who offers ghosts for hire in remake of BBC children's TV comedy.

Russell Brand to work on soccer movie

Russell Brand has signed up to play a womanising soccer star in a new movie.

We must part with our celebration of female- fronted comedy, thanks to The Morgana Show, a witless sketch vehicle for newcomer Morgana Robinson. Why has she got her own show? Is it because her agent is the powerful John Noel, who numbers Russell Brand among his clients? I wonder.

Like the similarly charmless Katy Brand, Robinson's toothless parodies of the likes of Boris Johnson and Cheryl Cole are an apolitical affirmation of the celebrity status quo, not an attack on it. They lack the backbone required for anything other than staggeringly uninspired whimsy.

And when Dom Joly escapes from the jungle, someone should alert him to The Morgana Show's suspiciously familiar bellowing mobile phone businessman. Shameless stuff.

Call me easily pleased but from the moment I heard the line 'I'm Fearne Cotton and I'm going to break my face into little pieces! Amazing! Ow!' I was on side with The Morgana Show. Some targets are crying out for a good kicking and every so often Morgana Robinson nailed one.

Morgana who? Exactly. When an unknown comedy talent goes straight from obscurity to a headline show it smacks of behind-the-scenes string-pulling. Robinson's has come courtesy of Russell Brand's agent, a regular at the restaurant where she used to work. But there's a sweet old-school showbiz lilt to that story, so we won't hold it against her.

Besides, if she was rubbish it wouldn't work. But while The Morgana Show, which welds together celeb impressions with character skits out of the Little Britain/Catherine Tate mould, is a hit and mish-mash affair, the best bits will make a great best bits clip on YouTube. The daytime TV presenters who mutter 'like each other, like each other' under their breath while bitching their brains out are at the top of my list.

The smart thing is, at the end of the first episode I had no more idea of what Morgana really looks like than I did at the beginning. Which was zero. Two years down the line, when she's been on everything from Mock The Week to Celebrity Juice and we're sick of the sight of her, the thrill will be gone. For now, she gets the benefit of the doubt.

Have you heard the one about vicar's son Miles Jupp?

Forget Frankie Boyle, Russell Brand and the comedy of shock. Stand-up is cleaning up its act and getting politer. A growing band of dissenting comedians out there do not tell smutty stories and crude gags - and the leading light of this new wave of niceness is Miles Jupp, a divinity graduate and son of a United Reform minister.

It shouldn't be funny. It's on BBC3, the intelligent critics hate it and it has a cameo from 'Happy Shopper Russell Brand', Noel Fielding. Still, tvBite can't help but laugh at it.

Star and writer Dan Clark has clearly tried to widen his writing for the third series: there's a dodgy subplot involving his attractive flatmate Laura Haddock, but if you ignore that (and it's easy to do) there's plenty of actually funny jokes, including a brilliant slo-mo montage set to Dire Straits and a good line about a roundhouse punch. It's not perfect, but there's talent - and a sense that everyone involved is really enjoying themselves.

Russell Brand's Holyrood mistake

Russell Brand burst in to the Scottish parliament to tell a teenage fan he had won a Pride Of Britain award - but got the wrong person.

Russell Brand and Katy Perry get married in India

British comedian Russell Brand has married US singer Katy Perry in a private ceremony in northern India.

Brawl hits Russell Brand wedding

Russell Brand was near tears last night after a fight between his minders and photographers threatened to wreck his wedding.

Noel Fielding, who looks like a cross between Sandie Shaw and Russell Brand, is tonight's headline act. But the Bristol audience isn't sure how to deal with him. There's a bit of reserve and possibly even bafflement in the applause. Which is perfectly understandable, as Fielding's brand of delicate surrealism withers under the glare of a broad-brush comedy show. Much more mainstream are John Sessions lookalike Hal Cruttenden, who does a very good camp Alexander the Great; Seann Walsh and his routine about why people don't use moving walkways in airports; and Mike Gunn, who makes jokes about his wife. But, as always, it's McIntyre the audience has really come to see and he wins them over completely with his impression of a rail ticket inspector and his account of reading the bedtime story on CBeebies.