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Thursday 30 July 2015

"Just for a laugh"

This is my first blog entry since Russell Brand's revolution ended (before it even began) in May. The whole debacle of Russell abandoning all of his principles to encourage the masses to vote for Labour in the General Rejection of May 7th, left me losing all respect for him, but yesterday he won me back.... with honours.

Last night, I attended Russell's new stand-up comedy show, A Trew Work in Progress, at the National Theatre's 200 capacity, Temporary Theatre in London - priced at just £15, how could I not!














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The very small audience were warmed-up for 15 minutes by Russell's very own poet laureate, Mr Gee, and then at 6.30pm, the 'Male Dot Cotton with mad eyes' himself appeared.... and yet the eyes didn't in fact look mad, or possessed, or glazed as they often do in photographs and on the telly, they looked warm and relaxed. Can one have relaxed eyes? I don't mean that he had a lazy eye or anything like that, he just looked.... himself, and therein lies the topic of the show.


RUSSELL LOOKING HIMSELF



RUSSELL LOOKING MAD-EYED

The show began with Russell asking what was real and what wasn't. He touched on the subject of having different personalities - what I would call pessoas - without knowing which is the real him. There was to be no mention of revolutions in 'A Trew Work in Progress', instead Rustle has turned his attention to the falsities of life, and it would appear that he is truly trying to find where he fits into the whole great picture, if indeed he does fit in at all.









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Gone, apparently, are Brand's days of chasing Babe Station girls, and the falsehood of celebrity, but as to where Russell goes from here, he doesn't yet seem to know. As one member of the audience pointed out in a Q&A session at the end, it is quite unique for a celebrity to come out and acknowledge that fame is bullshit, but my guess is that Russell's whole awakening regarding 'celebrity' originally came from his hero, Morrissey, who himself realised many years ago how ridiculous the whole culture is.





As Russell tries to find a direction, he informed us last night that he may well be having a mental breakdown, asking, "how do you know?" He told the audience that it was all right for them, but he had "shit" going on in his head all the time, including at 3am.

 I'm pretty sure he's not having a mental breakdown, he is just a thinker - recently voted the fourth most influential in the world, as he wittingly reminded his audience on more than one occasion!

As to whether it is a mental breakdown or not, the evening was highly entertaining, and Brand was back where he is at his best - on a stage, making people laugh. His use of the 'C' word throughout the evening was very much appreciated by not only me, but the entire audience. RB didn't use the word to outrage or shock, he just slotted it in at the right time; proving that used in the right way, it is one of the most beautiful words in the English dictionary.

On more than one occasion, Brand threw out the idea that he may in fact be the new Jesus; although I'm not convinced that Jesus would use the 'c' word quite so freely, but at least Russell looks more the part than David Icke ever did..... now that really WAS a metal breakdown!

BRAND - NEW JESUS?




ICKE - THE 1991 NEW JESUS

I have to admit, when RB gave his backing to Ed Miliband and the Labour party at the General election, I really did wonder if that was a mental breakdown, but as Russell told us last night, he only gave his backing to Labour "just for a laugh" - well thank God (or his dad) that he's cleared THAT up! Brand then very amusingly took the mickey out of the way Ed Miliband says the word, 'wrong', saying that when he interviewed him, he noticed how the word leaves his mouth and goes up instead of straight out.

WATCH MILIBAND SAY 'WRONG' AT 9 MINS 50 SECS

The Milibrand interview was another perfect example of Russell looking glazed, and he told the audience at The National Theatre how he looks that way when he's uninterested in someone, giving an example of when he interviewed Julian Assange.

He told us that Assange's answers to his questions were so boring, and that he (Brand) would instead be thinking of the next question, rather than actually listening to the answer. Personally, I think many interviewers work this way, and interviews often fail because the interviewer fails to engage with the interviewee. I have never found Russell to be a particularly good interviewer (unless he his genuinely interested in the interviewee), just as I don't think he makes a very good revolutionist or a great actor (which he pretty much admitted himself during last night's show). For me, as I have already written, Russell Brand is at his best, and being the REAL Russell, when he is making people laugh, but I guess he has to do the other things, so that he is able to write comedy about himself, and as he informed his audience at the very beginning of the night, he is extremely self aware.

He also told us that as well as being self aware, he is generally aware too, particularly of gags on the internet about him letting himself go, where photos of fat lookalikes are posted. He shared one of the images he had seen:




The reason Brand had mentioned Julian Assange last night, was because he wanted to make a joke about Assange having secrets. The gag was that Assange wouldn't let RB see the area where he sleeps in the Ecuadorian embassy in London (where he has been hiding for the past three years), but unfortunately for Russell, the joke about Assange having secrets didn't quite work out, and nobody laughed. Brand then made a joke about how the gag had failed, which then did get a laugh! The show is obviously called 'A Trew Work in Progress' for a reason, as we the audience were being used as guinea pigs, to try out new material on. I guess Russell will just have to re-work that particular gag.

Whilst talking about Assange, Russell took the opportunity to have a go at the way embassy's work, ridiculing the idea of having a part of a country within another country.

ASSANGE IN ECUADOR, LONDON!

If the Assange joke needs working on, plenty of the other jokes don't, as Brand had his audience in hysterics for the 85 minutes that he was on stage. He jumped from subject to subject, which included: false newspaper headlines from the past year about him, wanting to love Boris Johnson, David Lynch and his humming bird, Mike Tyson, David Walliams, Jeremy Paxman and Snide-gate.

Videos were used when talking about both the Paxman interview; which RB says left him unemployable, and snide-gate, with Russell's own self-awareness brought humorously to the fore as he broke down his own appearance on both videos.

LINDSEY GARRETT AND RUSSELL BRAND  - DESCRIBED BY RB LAST NIGHT "LIKE A COUPLE OUT OF EASTENDERS" - DURING THE 'SNIDE-GATE' INTERVIEW

One of the funniest moments during 'A Trew Work in Progress' was an impromptu piece with a grape, which had fallen from Russell's fruit bowl onto the floor. Brand lay on the floor and had a conversation with the grape, which for comedic purposes, he decided to turn into an immigrant. At the end of the conversation, he crushed the grape, and then pondered as to what it might come back to life as.... I bet it hopes it's not another f*****g grape!

The show ended with an audience member asking if Russell will run for a political office. He replied that he would't 'run' for anything, stating that he might saunter or meander, but NEVER run! He refused to rule out going onto politics, stating that he just doesn't know where he's going yet.... thus leaving as he entered!


UNKNOWN DIRECTION

Russell Brand may be struggling with both his mental well-being and finding his place in this world, but he could never have just been a Grays based, happy-go-lucky whistling postman who has nothing to think about other than which letter box to slip his next delivery into.... and no, that wasn't a euphemism, it's was just a sentence about a Royal Mail worker, a package and a flappy thing that may or may not have bristles around it! Russell Brand is far too intelligent and witty to ever be mediocre, and if he continues to combine his intelligence and wit, whilst remaining on a stage, that's where he will find his trew self, and WE will get the benefit.

My faith in Russ is still devout.

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