Although reviewing unauthorised biographies of Z-list celebs isn’t usually our bag, as Russell Brand’s notoriety is due in part to his relentless quest to fuck the entire western hemisphere, we figured he was worth a look-in.
If someone took the liberty to write my life story, I would probably be pretty peeved. But Tanith Carey has done Brand a good turn. It’s hard to put down and not just because veteran journalist Carey was probably trained in the art of succinct writing style, but Brand’s life story is actually rather interesting.
For those of you who haven’t read every tabloid tale out there depicting his somewhat traumatic rise (and fall) from grace, he wasn’t born into his Big Brother role. Brand worked the boards for a few years before he struck gold, and this was a rocky and yet heart-warmingly hilarious ride.
After a tumultuous Essex upbringing and a steely resolve to break the fame game, Brand descended into a rock-star style crack, smack and prostitute addiction, which delayed his meteoric rise somewhat. But he soldiered on with his stand-up, albeit often with disastrous consequences.
Fortunately the powers that be saw through the drug-addled smog and recognized a great talent in the making. Thanks to a sensible spell in rehab, shed loads of therapy and the backing of new agent John Noel, Brand reinvented himself. But rather than yet another boring rehabilitated rocker, Brand’s tale is warm, funny, moving, and of course littered with lots of fantastic sexual exploits.
After landing a job hosting a Big Brother spin-off show, he energetically wowed the crowd with his spectacular ability to simultaneously control live TV mayhem, appear mildly insane, and still make frequent off-the-cuff and astute references to literature, politics and philosophy in his lovable cockney twang.
He may have remerged as a louche, Gothic philanderer with a penchant for Dickensian terminology and bad bed-head, but whilst Brand is regularly referred to as an eloquent cad, stuck in an Eighteenth-century time warp, he is in fact a very modern man. He acts like Lord Byron and dresses like a dandy in drag, but Brand is a quintessential gentleman with impeccable manners, endearing sincerity and ultimate respect for the ladies. We don’t care if he’s got crap hair and a ruthless thirst for fame, we’d still love to get in line and shag the arse off him (although we might have to boil wash him first.)
Rhalou Allerhand