The Revolution Will Be Staged

Last night I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Russell Brand’s new stand up tour Messiah Complex. I’ve been a fan of Brand since I was introduced to his 6 Music show years ago by a friend and I’ve followed through the trials and tribulations as he rose to become the significant figure he is now. What a lot of people seem to forget is that he isn’t some joker in the pack, although he plays that role very well, he is a very articulate and astute comic, writer and commentator and his stand up is beginning to be streamlined more towards his thoughts on the world around him more than simply an excuse to try and maintain his perceived status.
I first saw Brand live at The Roundhouse in 2007 where he commented on the fact The Doors had played on that stage and talked about the inevitabilities of ‘nut-brush’ when conducting a FMM threesome.
Of course he hasn’t completely separated himself from the ‘Shagger Of The Year’ he was awarded by The Sun newspaper for two years running but his thoughts have become a lot more focused. The bizarre antics of his past are material, and he has honed his craft into a captivating show.
You leave wondering exactly why it is you trust a man to run your country when he can’t even perform a suitably upright thumbs up. According to Brand it’s because he “ain’t good at sex”, to which he added a lovely mime of George Osborne licking the PM’s bumhole. It was a lot more like political satire and less like playground antics than it sounds, really.
The stage is his natural platform and he controls it completely. When walking out into the audience his approach is met like that of the messiah, women expose flesh and men reach out for a grasp of the man like he can cure their ills. Russell Brand is a figure in himself, he’s dressed himself up as being both a prophet and a jester and it works. You want to believe that the world can change but he isn’t the one who will nobly step forward to bring it about. Instead he is just pointing out all of the wrongs in the world. We are all more than aware of the majority of them but the way Brand takes apart the most recognisable of consumerist mascots, symbols and slogans is as cutting as it is whimsical.
The real question is where he can go from here. How long will it be before his rank as the town cryer of injustice is slayed by the press as the result of him fucking it all up again. He has a self confessed self-destructive streak and the concern is that all of his talk and all of his showmanship and bravado will amount to nought if he were to implode once more. We need Brand more than ever, and he knows it.