Russell Brand

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.

It's been far too long, but finally Brooker, the master of dissecting current trends in television, returns for a new series. Expect the Ross/Brand saga, the economic meltdown, and costume dramas to come under Brooker's acerbic gaze.

It was difficult to view the first of the second series from an objective viewpoint - it became both the most complained about and most praised C4 show of the week, as the 'ban this filth' and the 'if you don't like it change the channel' brigades dragged their argument into a second week. In actual fact, it wasn't bad and featured some nice clips and comments from the dandy himself. Last week's episode on the subject of family was less sucessful, I think, and Brand's performance seemed rather forced. There is no doubt that Brand definitely has something, but I don't think we're seeing the best of him here.

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.

Jim Shelley Review

From the awful, awkward, title to the tired, unambitious concept, this was dismal.

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.

After his inexplicably offensive radio broadcast, Russell Brand's Ponderland returned to show that the best of him is his surrealism and the worst is his sneering. In his autobiography and the interviews surrounding it he said that the proper butt of a comedian's jokes is himself. When you start laughing at other people's expense, he explained, you have to examine your motives. It sounded commendably idealistic at the time, but, boy, does it ring hollow now.