Russell Brand

The unstoppable rise of Russell Brand

Eighteen months ago, the comedian's career seemed on the edge of collapse. Now he's on the verge of international stardom. So what went right?

Russell Brand and Katy Perry deny break-up rumours

Russell Brand and Katy Perry look more loved-up than ever as they left LA this weekend. The couple have been battling rumours that they are on the verge of breaking up but appeared happier than ever as they walked through Los Angeles International Airport yesterday.

When the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand "Sachsgate" mini-drama fizzled away, the world in which I work was changed for ever by the c-word - compliance. I can no longer listen to programmes for reviewing purposes without them having been signed off by multiple layers of managers, especially and primarily at Radio 2. So I have not been able to enjoy the first of the returning series of one of my favourite radio comedies. I hope and imagine that this tale of a 38-year-old gamer, entirely at the mercy of his ruthless mother, will be as funny as the past two series. But whatever the content, we can, at least, be assured that it's ticked all the correct boxes.

Lock up your granddaughters: Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross are reunited for the first time since Sachsgate as one of the teams on this annual topical ding-dong. Expect edgy banter from the controversial pair, alongside fellow panellists David Mitchell, Claudia Winkleman, Rob Brydon and Newswipe's Charlie Brooker. Jimmy Carr keeps score.

Catherine Tate's Nan, a ruthlessly truthful creation, is best taken short. Nan's Christmas Carol (BBC1, Friday), longer than usual and later than usual because of Nan's language, cast her as a combatative Scrooge making three ghosts and her deceased husband sorry they were born. Or died. The most eye- catching ghost was David Tennant, who bore a striking resemblance to Russell Brand.

Andrew Sachs probably won't be tuning in for this one. Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand are reunited on television for the first time since Sachsgate. However, this being Channel 4, don't expect a grovelling apology at the beginning but plenty of jokes about telephone calls, Spanish waiters and Satanic Sluts. Jimmy Carr is in the chair for what has become an annual festive highlight, poking fun at the biggest stories of the year. Ross and Brand have been cheekily paired together and up against them will be Claudia Winkleman and Rob Brydon and David Mitchell and the TV critic Charlie Brooker, making his first appearance. Peter Andre is among the celebrity questioners, but rumours that Tiger Woods will be appearing are wide of the mark.

You know what? - Rod Liddle eventually ruined this week. By Tuesday I was looking at everything on television, able only to wonder what Liddle would make of it. I'd been strapped into Liddle-goggles. What, for instance, is Liddle's stance on Russell Brand? Brand is 100 per cent white Anglo-Saxon - which presumably counts for at least ten Liddle points. Additionally, Brand talks like a souped-up Timothy Claypole from Rentaghost - which, in the absence of any more specific examples, one would presume is the kind of traditional, non-immigration-ruined British thing that Liddle would like. There's no modern rap-talk from Brand! It's all "I can't wait for the Great Exhibition of 1851!" this, and "Enjoy Pickwick's Patented Hair Pomade" the other.

However, a quick googling of Liddle's previous columns reveals that, in fact, he is down on Brand, big-time: "Smug, arrogant, over-paid, apparently stupid and not remotely entertaining." A fairly useful indicator to the rest of us that, given that Liddle hates him, Brand is probably awlright.

As the first real televisual access to Brand since last year's omni-demented Sachs-gate affair, The Road to Russell Brand: Skinned was an instructive insight into how Brand had dealt with it. Had he been a butterfly, broken on a wheel? Was he now tremulous, and wary?

"I was like - it's an exciting thing!" he beamed. "I'm in the middle of a storm - and I like it here! This is where I should always be!" Later on - referring to the incident on stage - he pointed out: "The thing is - I do worse than that every day."

Looking - with his big rack of teeth - very much like Mega Shark, the star of the recent B-movie Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Brand spent an hour answering Frank Skinner's questions, intercut with documentary footage of his recent publicity strike in America and appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and The Jay Leno Show.

Skinner's questioning didn't kick off with immense threat or weight: "I've always thought beautiful people couldn't be funny - but you've proved this wrong," was his first "question" to Brand. Somewhere, Jeremy Paxman must have felt a stabbing pain in his duodenum. But as the hour went on, Skinner lobbed in a couple of interesting observations - not least noting that, "I always found that, in order to be a womaniser, you had to turn down your compassion and humanity to get laid" - a proposition that Brand didn't have any real riposte to.

"It takes a lot of discipline - more than I have - not to go 'I will f*** you, you know'," he beamingly explained, over footage of fans screaming his name.

Perhaps the most amazing revelation in Skinnned, however, was neither sexual nor centred on controversy. Instead, it was that Brand has someone on tour with him to do his hair and make-up. Darling, I adore how you look but, honestly - ratting up your hair and applying two tramlines of kohl like that could just as easily be achieved by someone in security, or catering.

Here, in Russell Brand: Skinned (Channel 4), is another faintly ridic-ulous man. He's being interviewed, rather well, by Frank Skinner, although, to be fair, Frank doesn't have to work hard. It just comes pouring out: drugs (again - shut up about the drugs), the women, Sachsgate (he's both sorry and not sorry), ambition. And it's very good, because Russell Brand is very good - funny, clever, quick, eloquent (he knows how to use words like dichotomy and caveat). Sometimes you have to marvel at the man.

I don't love him, though, wouldn't get into a hot tub with him (very happy to with Frank Skinner, however). Maybe it doesn't matter: you don't need to love someone for them to make you laugh. It's probably for the same reason that lots of men don't love him: he's funnier and more attractive than we are, and he's going to mate with our women. But there's more to it. In spite of his chattiness, his tactile rubberiness, there's something cold about him. Look into his eyes. He's a lizard, that's what he is.

I've always wanted to dislike Russell Brand, but I can't quite do it. That said, I don't know what it is about him that I do like, I just know I can't dislike him as much as many do.

Even after Sachsgate - which demonstrated a level of purile stupidity that I expected from Ross but not Brand - I still can't wholly have an aversion to the man. I suspect it might be nothing more than the fact that he makes me laugh, and it's hard to abhor someone who amuses you.

He's witty, he can - one assumes, given the number of ladies he's been involved with - be charming and he can be self-deprecating when it's required. However, this sit down with Frank Skinner told us nothing we didn't already know and was, to be honest, just a pi**ing contest between the two to see who could be funniest.

We heard from both several tales of how fame had gone to their heads, both the ones they keep on their necks and the other ones, and the effect that something Brand described as "oestrogen mist" had on them. Basically, they have both been offered nookie on a plate from adoring female fans and both have partaken from that bottomless trough often.

Skinner questioned the moral rectitude of doing so and seemed genuinely embarrassed that he'd taken full advantage of that particular form of hero worship, but Brand answered the relatively serious question with jokes, so it lost any depth it might have had.

There was of course lengthy discourse about the Andrew Sachs affair and Brand rather confusingly at once apologised - again - and then refuted that he'd done anything that wrong in the first place. He did however - rightly in my opinion - proffer that much of the fuss wasn't about the incident itself but the wider issue of celebrity salaries and the BBC licence fee.

Overall, this was like Jeremy Paxman interviewing Bungle after a spliff; one didn't expect it to be deeply serious, just somewhat informative in its endeavour, but it just didn't have the energy to get past the giggling stage.

The world would be a sadder place if Russell Brand quit the public eye - he's scarily intelligent, supremely funny, startlingly honest and can't last a day without pushing buttons. In this documentary, ex-alcoholic Frank Skinner interviews Brand about his wild career, drug addiction, relationship with the media and even his dandy image, which Brand makes sense of using Simpsons creator Matt Groening's maxim that 'good cartoon characters are recognisable in silhouette'. A fascinating account, interspersed with early and recent performance footage.