Selling A Rounded Brand – Edgy Brits Need Manning & Sadowitz
RUSSELL Brand everybody.
“He was an edgy host for an edgy live event. It worked well,” says an ITV spokesman.
“Edgy” is marketing speak for “likely to swear on the telly”. And Brand, who hosted the Brits awards do, was likely to swear.
But Brand did not swear. Brand is not all that edgy. Brand is exactly what you’d expect – a rounded performer who can do telly and radio, and do as he’s told.
If the organisers of the Brits really want someone to shock and get a laugh they should go for Bernard Manning.
Brand is the Pete Doherty of presenting – can you name a Brand gag or a Doherty song? What he’d give for Manning’s joke:
Husband: Yessss! I’ve won the pools. Pack yer bags.
Wife: Oooooh! (In silly voice.) What shall I pack? Where are we going?
Husband: Don’t matter. Just pack yer bags. And fuck off.
But instead of that, the great and good of British pop music get Brand:
Brand: Who among us didn’t smoke a little bit of weed at school just to take the edge of those crack comedowns?
Brand: Can you genuinely say that if someone gives you an envelope of the Queen’s privates inside you wouldn’t take a look?
And the joke that was banned:
Brand: And here are the Scissor sisters with a pyrotechnic show that would even put the 9/11 attacks to shame.
Brand’s humour hinges on him saying the unsayable. But in its repetition it quickly becomes dull and predictable. Brand is priapic teenage boy saying “jism”, a lot.
Still, the Brits’ organisers might have got what they wanted with the Mirror noting the 300 and more calls and emails sent to Ofcom bemoaning Brand’s edginess.
“Russell has a sick Brand of humour blasts fans,” says the Star’s headline. Brand looks outrageous. Brand says outrageous things.
Brand: Britney Spears doesn’t so much release songs as endless photos of her vagina. 
So instead of Brand let’s have someone funny. Let’s have Manning.
Or of he’s not edgy enough, what about Jerry Sadowitz, the man whose suicidal tendencies saw him open the Montreal Comedy Festival by saying, “Hello Moose Fuckers.”
Although don’t hold your breath. As Sawofdwitz says on his website: “TV land is full of untalented, gay, English upper-class CHANCERS.”
Posted: 17th, February 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
