Russell Edward Brand^[1] (born June 4, 1975) is a British 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".^[2] Brand's current style consists of black eyeliner, drainpipe jeans, Beatle boots, and long, shaggy, backcombed hair.

Early life

Brand was born in Grays, Essex, England, as the only child of Barbara Elizabeth (Nichols) and Ronald Henry Brand, a photographer.^[3] His parents separated in 1978 when Russell was three. Brand's relationship with his father has always been complicated. At the age of 16 the two travelled to the Far East, where they shared a room and slept with prostitutes.^[4] Brand made his theatrical debut aged fifteen, in Bugsy Malone as Fat Sam, and his performances earned him a council funded education at the Italia Conti Academy, which led to a three-year scholarship at Drama Centre in Chalk Farm. Brand is a former heroin addict, alcoholic and has had numerous run-ins with the law, having been arrested eleven times;^[5] he was also expelled from the Italia Conti Academy when he was younger. During the time of his addiction, he was known for his debauchery, a notable example being his ejection from The Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh.^[6] He has been free from heroin addiction since 2003, and is now a patron of the addiction charity Focus 12. His abandonment of drugs and alcohol was supposedly instigated by John Noel, Brand's manager.^[7] He did so with the help of the Hare Krishnas, to whom he feels "indebted".^[8] He hosted a forum show about drugs for Channel 4 in 2006, which had a similar format to that of Big Brother's Big Mouth, and his stand-up show Better Now drew extensively on his experiences with addiction.^[9]

Career

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 Jimmy Carr, 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".

Television

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.^[10]

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. ^[11] 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 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."^[12] 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.

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. After 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.

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^[13] 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. ^[14]. 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.

A documentary presented by Brand and Matt Morgan about the writer Jack Kerouac is scheduled on air in December on BBC Four.

On Tuesday November 27,2007 Brand spoke and answered questions for the Oxford Union, which was filmed as part of a new TV project.

Acting

Brand's first major TV work was an appearance in an episode of The Bill. In 2002 he filmed roles in the television comedy dramas, Cruise of the Gods and White Teeth. In late 2005 he played Tommy in the BBC sitcom Blessed which was written and directed by Ben Elton.

In 2007 Brand played a recovering crack addict called Terry in the pilot for ITV comedy The Abbey, written by Morwenna Banks.^[15] The Abbey has since been commissioned for a full series to be shown on ITV2 although it is not clear if Brand will be in the series.^[16] Also that year Brand appeared in Cold Blood for ITV playing an ex-con called Ally.

Film

Brand filmed small roles in the films Penelope which stars Reese Witherspoon and Christina Ricci and also has a small part in Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette from which his role was not included in the final cut.

In 2007 Brand will appear in the film remake of St Trinian's opposite Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Stephen Fry and Emily Watson. According to recent press reports, Brand is in talks to appear in an as yet untitled action comedy feature film alongside Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock, after being introduced to director Brett Ratner by Courtney Love. Brand is also to star in the 2008 film Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Radio

Russell Brand
File:Russell Brand Radio 2.JPG Russell Brand and the BBC Radio 2 logo
Career
Show	Russell Brand
Station	BBC Radio 2
Time slot	Saturday 9:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Station	BBC 6 Music
Time slot	Sunday 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Country	United Kingdom
Website	www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/brand

Brand's radio career began in early 2002, when he hosted a Sunday afternoon show on London's Indie Rock station Xfm. He lasted only four months on the slot as he was sacked for reading out pornographic material on air.^{[citation needed]}

He wasn't heard on the airwaves again until Christmas 2005, when he was heard sitting in for Nemone on BBC 6 Music's 10 p.m. - 1 a.m. late night show for three nights alongside Ricky Gervais stooge Karl Pilkington. Station controller Lesley Douglas liked what she heard and in March 2006 offered him a regular show on the station, on Sunday mornings from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m., due to contractual obligations linked to his podcast with Gervais^{[citation needed]}, Pilkington was replaced with Brand's long-term contributor Matt Morgan and comedian Trevor Lock (who left in March 2007 to start his own radio show). The show placed as high as number one in the iTunes UK most-subscribed podcast chart.

In October 2006, BBC announced a 40% rise in listeners to BBC digital radio, which they claimed was largely attributed to host Russell Brand. According to industry ratings body Rajar, the station was attracting over 400,000 listeners. ^[17]

The show was transferred to BBC Radio 2, the UK's most popular radio station, from Saturday November 18, 2006 in the 9 p.m. - 11 p.m. timeslot.^[18] The radio show often features a phone call with Noel Gallagher of Oasis and discussions revolving around listeners' emails, text messages or phone calls. The show is completed with a poem summing up the evening's events by the resident poet Mr. Gee. A previous segment 'Cry For Help' consisted of listeners phoning and asking Brand and Morgan for advice.

In January, 2007, the show reached the number one spot on the iTunes podcast charts and held that position until April 2007 when it was overtaken by The Apprentice podcast and continued to go up and down the charts prompting Brand to start a campaign to get it back to #1, which eventually succeeded.

Books

His autobiography, My Booky Wook, published by Hodder & Stoughton, was released on November 15, 2007. The book gained a mainly positive reception^[19] with the observer commenting that "Russell Brand's gleeful tale of drugs and debauchery in My Booky Wook puts most other celebrity memoirs to shame"^[20] However a review in the satirical magazine Private Eye slated the book as "dismal and masturbatory" and that over the course of the book it "gradually becomes clear that his only subject is himself".^{[citation needed]}

There are two unofficial biographies about Brand. One is entitled Russell Brand and is written by Tanith Carey; the other is called Russell Brand: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know and is written by Dave Stone.

Music

Brand recorded The Beatles song, "When I'm Sixty-Four" with Grammy Award-winning composer, David Arnold for the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Notoriety

• Rod Stewart publicly chided Brand at the 2006 GQ Awards for saying he'd slept with his daughter Kimberly Stewart. Collecting an award for outstanding achievement, Stewart challenged Brand to swear an oath that this really had happened - and warned Brand that if he couldn't swear that it was true, he shouldn't make such claims. During the filming of the Live stand-up DVD on the subject of "shame" he addressed this matter, explaining that his claim was a joke, and that he and Stewart share a common PR agent and were "messing about".
• On February 23, 2006, he hosted the 2006 NME Awards show. Upon reaching the stage to receive his award, Bob Geldof began his speech with 'Russell Brand... what a cunt.' Which later prompted Brand to strike back with: "Really it's no surprise he's such an expert on famine; after all, he's been dining out on "I Don't Like Mondays" for 30 years".^[21]

Personal life

Brand currently resides in Hampstead, London.^[22] He is a big fan of The Smiths and their ex-frontman Morrissey, and has a cat of the same name. Brand is also a vegetarian and does yoga. He is a fan of West Ham United and has a season ticket. His love of football is a big part of his life; he claims it is "intrinsically about my relationship with my father". ^[23] He has stated on his radio show that he would like the song "Asleep" by The Smiths played at his funeral.

Awards

• Time Out
  • 2006 Best Stand-Up^[24]

• GQ
  • Most Stylish Man of the Year 2006^[25]
  • Least Stylish Man of the Year 2007^[26]

• Loaded Laftas 2006
  • 2006 Funniest Man^[27]

• British Comedy Awards
  • Best Newcomer 2006^[28]

• 33rd Annual Television and Radio Awards Broadcasting Press Guild
  • Best Television Performer In A Non-Acting Role ^[29]

• BBC Three
  • Third Most-Annoying People Of 2006

• PETA
  • Europe's Sexiest Vegetarian 2006^[30]
  • Europe's Sexiest Vegetarian 2007 ^[31]

• PETA Europe
  • World's Sexiest Vegetarian 2007 ^[32]

• Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups
  • 69th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups programme

• The Sun
  • Shagger of the Year 2006

Selected works

Radio credits

• XFM Russell Brand Sunday Afternoons, Early 2002
• BBC 6 Music Standing in for Nemone with Karl Pilkington (27 December 2005 - 29 December 2005)
• BBC 6 Music Sundays 10am-1pm, March 2006 - November 2006
• BBC Radio 2 The Mark Radcliffe show/Various pilots
• BBC Radio 2 Saturdays 9-11pm, November 2006 - Present

Television credits

• Dancefloor chart - MTV
• Ibiza on One - Sky One
• RE:Brand - 2002 - UK Play
• Comedy Lab: The Russell Brand - Channel 4
• Kings of Comedy - 2004 - E4
• Big Brother's Big Mouth - June, 2004-January, 2007 - E4/Channel 4
• 1 Leicester Square - 2006 - MTV
• Russell Brand's Got Issues - September, 2006-October, 2006 - E4
• The Russell Brand Show - November, 2006 - December, 2006 - Channel 4
• The Big Fat Quiz of the Year - December 27, 2006 - Channel 4
• Russell Brand's Ponderland - October 22, 2007 – October 27, 2007 Channel 4

Stand-up credits

• Better Now - 2004
• Eroticised Humour - 2005
• Shame - 2006 (Released on DVD as Russell Brand: Live)
• Secret Policeman's Ball - 2006
• Teenage Cancer Trust Benefit - 2007
• Russell Brand: Only Joking - 2007 (Released on DVD as Russell Brand: Doing Life)

References

External links

• Russell Brand's website
• Russell Brand's BBC Radio 2 show homepage
• Russell Brand's BBC Radio 2 Blog
• Russell Brand's BBC 6 Music show homepage
• The Russell Brand Fansite
• Focus 12 Charity
• Top Ten Russell Videos
• Russell Brand at IMDb
• Russell Brand Photo Website
• Russell Brand Photo Website 2