Russell Brand Live

Filmed during a sell-out tour a couple of years ago - long before he was winding up the American Right - the manic motormouth roars through his gig in front of an ecstatic audience. Reviewing the show in The Times, Ed Potton wrote: Brand has the rare ability to combine the innocent and the sordid, comparing his childhood joy at being allowed to stay up until ten with the more mature thrill of smuggling heroin.

By the end, even his detractors ended up with a grudging admiration for his surreal intelligence and his vivid use of imagery. Here is a man who described a bearded Saddam Hussein as looking like a Father Christmas who'd been sacked from Debenhams for being drunk at work.

Lanky comedian Russell Brand performs a stand-up show which was filmed in London in 2006. His quirky and foul-mouthed observational comedy isn't always successful, but it's engaging enough to stop you spending the entire programme thinking how satisfying it would be if you could give his alarming bush of hair a good run through with a comb.

Coming on like the unlikely lovechild of Pirates Of The Caribbean's Jack Sparrow and Dot Cotton, this gig from Brand's 2006 stand-up tour showcases his talent for spinning the most mundane aspects of life into a lengthy skit.

Merely collecting his luggage at the airport is good for 10 minutes of material.

But just as you're worrying that he might be intending to describe his entire skiing holiday to us in real time - and struggling to picture him in salopettes and mittens, or with the group of alpha male northern mates he claims to have gone away with - he changes tack.

There's mileage to be had from his run-ins with Rod Stewart and Bob Geldof, as well as his specialist subject: sex. It's filthy, funny and highly educational.