Russell Brand

Gavin's Gag Over Joke

James Corden and Mathew Horne revealed the BBC banned songs about Jesus on their new sketch show after the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand prank row.

Four woman dressed up as Russell Brand rummaging through a rubbish bin exclaiming 'forsooth' and 'perchance' makes for a diverting image. But like most of Beehive, the comedy sketch show from whence it sprang, it was only half an idea - a cartoon cut-out in search of a gag to hang it on. It's just too easy to get this sort of half-baked stuff on the telly these days.

Russell Brand is a unique comedian who, despite his recent brush with controversy, wins the crowd over with his off-key charm.

Producers and directors, weep and despair! Bilious but brutally funny critic Charlie Brooker is back for another series of satirical swipes at the television industry. First up in his cross-hairs, expensive but bland television dramas, property shows and the furore surrounding Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

Yes, he's an acquired taste. Yes, he looks like he has more teeth than is surely humanly possible, and yes he ca be filthier than a coal house door. But Russell Brand is a master of florid absurdities, which makes him arguably one of the most magnetic performers of his generation.

In this second Ponderland, Brand is voluble, silly, wildly witty and, yes, a bit naughty sometimes. Using as props a clutch of ostensibly dreary archive clips from what looks like the 1970s, Brand weaves tales of madness encompassing an obnoxious child and his bullied, cut-glass parents, a girl who can't stop sneezing with a mum who looks like Radiohead's Thom Yorke and a three-year-old on a motorcycle.

It's been a terrible week for popular, wild-haired comedian Russell Brand. After he and Jonathan Ross left lewd messages on actor Andrew Sachs' voicemail during a Radio 2 show, more than 18,000 complaints pushed him into parting company with the BBC.

Inevitably, the tabloid furore over 'Sachsgate' boosted the return of Russell Brand's Ponderland to 1 million viewers for the start of its second series.

Besides a better set, the bedrock of Ponderland's format remained the same: Brand introduces a funny clip from the TV archives, the footage is played to a live studio audience, and Brand finally dissects the clip by spinning it into a meandering, surreal few minutes of iffy stand-up. Some of it works, most of it doesn't. I've always found Brand an odd TV presence (his shark's grin, his big hair, those tight trousers), and much prefer his anarchic, playful radio persona without that visual distraction. It's just an ironic pity radio gave him enough rope to hang himself with, isn't it.

The BBC has suspended all Russell Brand-related activities for the foreseeable future. Assuming your hunger for Brand hasn't been entirely assuaged lately, the sole remaining source is Russell Brand's Ponderland, in which his customary rants are structured around random snippets of old news footage on a weekly theme, which, last night, was pets.

I'd call myself an admirer of Brand, if at times a reluctant one, but I don't think this format suits him. Either the stories are too bland for his outrage (an elderly aristocrat who dyes his pigeons primary colours) or the outrage is ready-made (an American woman who had had an affair with her dog and was now eyeing up her pony). Interesting to note in the closing credits, though, that the production company that makes it is called Vanity, and its logo is a cartoon of a naked man standing over a mirror and playing with his willy. What you see is what you get.

Given that it contained two of my favourite phenomena, namely Russell Brand and psychic cats, it's odd to report that Russell Brand's Ponderland only fitfully tickled my whiskers.

Maybe it was because the peerless Harry Hill's TV Burp does the clip'n'mix style of comedy so well or maybe Brand was fitting in between Hollywood movies, pestering Andrew Sachs and resigning from the BBC (my nomination for non-scandal of the year) but there were times when his bestial riffing - his subject was pets - felt a tad forced.

Still, even when Brand is only purring on low gas he's still worth a sniff, ripping ribald laughs out of a scary woman who'd become rather too fond of her dog and a suicide pact involving a parrot. But for every good gag there was one he should have dumped in the litter tray.

The Times Review

In Ponderland Russell Brand proves how very funny he is. The idea is that he riffs on topics in that Brand kind of a way that makes no sense written down. His jokes are not quotable, not because they are profane, but because they are a stream of mucky consciousness and absurdity.

There are good reasons why Russell Brand has become such a comic phenomenon - and there are equally good reasons why he has been suspended from BBC duties. Publicity accompanies Brand like an attendant pilot fish, so much so that Sachs-gate suddenly seems like brilliantly spun PR for his returning Channel 4 stand-up series. Those who enjoy his surreal, decidedly unwholesome observations on the oddities of life will gleefully lap this up.