Russell Brand
My head is still throbbing from trying to make sense of the manic bundle of leather clad energy that is Russell Brand.
The man is a vortex, sucking you into a world of heroes (Ghandi, Malcolm X, Jesus and Che Guevara), and villains (McDonald’s, Gillette, the Daily Mail), all the while trying to convince you, in his meandering, wayward style, that he’s more like the former than the latter, despite being a celebrity.
It’s a lean frame to hang the show – Messiah Complex – on, but it suits the wild eyed comic’s scattergun storytelling; he’s like a dog on a lead, being yanked back to how he really is more like Ghandi than you’d think.
He stalked on stage in a “sexy” pair of boots (his words), with huge loops of beads swinging from his neck, before demanding the lights to blaze. Then he hopped off stage and took an anxiety inducing tour of the Corn Exchange. It was terrifying, despite an anecdote about him screaming at Simba in the Lion King musical to steady our nerves. It was also absolutely hilarious. He grabbed at crutches, embarrassed some twins and then went and sat on the lap of a punter in a wheelchair and had him drive him round the auditorium. It was incredible – particularly seeing as Jamie, the guy in the wheelchair, was funny enough to give Brand a run for his money.
The rest of the set went by in a blur.
He slinked and sashayed, gyrated and screeched his way around the stage, dissolving the boundaries between highbrow ideas – wordily railing against corporations, governments and consumerism – and the crude stuff, suddenly switching tack to explain what he used to get up to with his mum’s Henry Hoover…
He’s much more self-deprecating than you’d expect, honest about his “acting”, throwing up photos of himself looking borderline insane on the big screen, and whipping out some of his most embarrassing moments (considering Brand has spent large chunks of his life off his face on drugs and doing anything for attention, you can imagine these tales are pretty magic).
Although a master at showing off (“I beat Paxman in an argument!”), irritatingly so at times, he’s got a knack for brainwashing you with his point of view (and to be honest, the majority of his ideas make a lot of sense, even if in practical reality they might flounder), the next you’re thinking, how does he sustain that level of mania on stage for a solid 90 minutes? He’s brilliantly, wondrously exhausting, meaning we left the venue close to mental collapse, nervous system agog, throats aching from laughter.
An orchestrated tangle of a show, you can’t help believing Brand has a touch of hysterical genius to him. He’s certainly entertaining.
First published by the Cambridge News.
Ribbon and Rope 