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Russell Brand

Russell Edward Brand, is an English radio and television personality, comedian, actor, and newspaper columnist. Brand dresses in a flamboyant bohemian fashion describing himself as looking like an "S&M Willy Wonka". Brand's current style consists of black eyeliner, drainpipe jeans, Beatle boots, and long, shaggy, backcombed hair.

Stand-up

Brand's first significant stand-up appearance was at the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year final in 2000. Although he did not finish in the top three, his performance attracted the attention of an agent, John Noel. His first big tour was his show Shame which he toured the UK and performed to sell out audiences drawing on embarrassing things that have happened and the tabloid press and how they have treated him since he became famous. In late November 2006 Russell put on a secret stand-up show for anyone who had added him as a friend on MySpace. This show featured unseen material not featured on his DVD. Brand performed a sketch with close friends Matt Lucas & David Walliams for a Little Britain live show for Comic Relief in which he played a crossdressing plumber who comes out to "fellow crossdresser", Emily Howard. Brand appeared in a sketch and did stand-up at the 2006 Secret Policeman's Ball. In March 2007, Brand performed a charity show with Noel Fielding centred around the Goth Detectives. The idea for the show was inspired by Jonathon Ross, who, on The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2006, suggested that Fielding could play Bob Skeleton ("Indie Detective"), which led to Brand and Fielding jokingly describing a fictional scenario in which they were "Goth Detectives."

Presenting

Brand's first presenting job was as a VJ on music channel MTV presenting Dance Floor Chart and MTV Select. However he was sacked after coming to work dressed as Osama bin Laden on 12 September 2001. In 2004, he hosted Big Brother's Eforum on E4, a sister show to Big Brother 5. The show gave celebrity guests and the public the chance to have their say on the goings-on inside the Big Brother house. For Big Brother 6 the show's name changed to Big Brother's Big Mouth. The ratings for Big Brother's Big Mouth during Big Brother 7 were good. Following the racism row of Celebrity Big Brother 5, Brand confirmed he would not return to host the Big Brother 8 series of Big Brother's Big Mouth (although the row was not cited as the cause); in a statement Brand thanked all the producers for "taking the risk of employing an ex-junkie twerp" to front the show and of his time presenting the show, he said: "The three years I've spent on Big Brother's Big Mouth have been an unprecedented joy." Brand hosted a one-off special called Big Brother According to Russell Brand in which Brand takes a surreal, sideways look at Big Brother through the ages. On 8 January 2008, Brand was the fifth celebrity to hijack the Big Brother house in the E4 show Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack.

Brand was welcomed back into the MTV fold in spring 2006 when he began presenting chat show 1 Leicester Square initially going out at 8 p.m. on Sundays before being shifted to a post-watershed time of 10 p.m. on Mondays, allowing a more adult theme to the show. Guests have included Tom Cruise, Uma Thurman, McFly and Boy George. A second series began in September 2006 on MTV UK. Following Big Brother 7 finished, Brand presented a debate show called Russell Brand's Got Issues, on digital channel E4. The viewing figures for the first episode were seen as disappointing, being beaten by nearly all of E4's main multi-channel rivals, despite a big publicity and promotional campaign for the show and achieving only 148,000 viewers on the opening night. Then finally, On November 9, 2006 it was announced that Brand would host his own chat show called The Russell Brand Show. The first episode was broadcast on Friday November 24 on Channel 4 and the show ran for five weeks.

In December 2006, Brand took part in Channel 4's annual The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, presented by Jimmy Carr. He was teamed with Noel Fielding from The Mighty Boosh. They went on to win the quiz after receiving 22 points for one question (quizmaster Jimmy Carr had jokingly said that he'd give them 22 points if they got it right, assuming that they would get it wrong, as they were giving blatantly incorrect answers to the other questions).

Brand hosted the 2007 BRIT Awards and an hour of Comic Relief. On July 7, 2007 Brand presented at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London.

Brand returned to Channel 4 to host Russell Brand's Ponderland, in which he discusses various topics like childhood and science through stand-up comedy. The show first aired Monday, October 22, 2007, and was on every weeknight that week.

On November 27, 2007 Brand spoke and answered questions for the Oxford Union, which was filmed as part of a segment on Oxford students, shown on BBC2's The Culture Show on December 8, 2007