Brand New
Not, surprisingly, a posting about the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross debacle, but a posting about the Russell Brand live show The Mrs and I went to last night. Yes, unexpectedly, he’s here in San Francisco for two nights, with last night being the second.
I’ve never seen him do stand up live, and it being so close to the recent troubles made for an interesting context. There were a lot of Brits in the audience too, which meant he could reference some matters and at least get a degree of reaction that might not have been the case in a purely US crowd. The fact that The Mrs and I weren’t the only ones who boo’d when he mentioned the Daily Mail, for instance, was at once funny and slightly odd.
He is, in person, exactly like you’d think he was going to be, and his material (openly admitted as trial runs for stuff he’s preparing for a Comedy Central special) and delivery veer wildly and entertainingly into a multitude of styles and subjects. Like Eddie Izzard, there’s a sense that any given sentence might end up in a completely different place than he intended at its start. His ability to craft highly complex concepts with his words and deliver them at almost impossible speed keeps the audience on its toes intellectually in a way that very few stand-ups even attempt, and some of his references (Foucault? Really?) must be lost on a lot of people.
Not everything worked - there were a few points at which the sentences that could go anywhere actually didn’t and trailed off into nothing, and some of the sexual references that are clearly part of his core persona slipped over the precipice into forced and even embarrassing. Overall though, more worked and didn’t, and some of it worked brilliantly.
I’m very glad we got to see it, and I’ll watch out for the special to see what made it in.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Oh! We were going to go to this - had tickets and everything - but didn’t because of being poorly. Did he say lots about the Ross/Sachs-Granddaughter farago?
November 7th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
He didn’t mention it directly at all, but he did mention that the Brits in the house would understand that when he was talking about the MTV VMA furore he was referring to ‘his last-but-one national scandal’. He made the point that these days he pretty much regards national scandals as a unit of time :-)
Would have been a mental ‘passing in the night’ thing if we’d both been there.
Hope you’re feeling better.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Ach, the marvellous combinations of meat and carbohydrates seems to prove too exciting for my poor english stomach at times, which yearns for humbler fare. Like fresh vegetables and that kind of craziness.
I have got over-excited by all the possible burgers (and other meat/carb maush-ups) in the world of america and made myself poorly several times since getting here. I need to get back to my steamed broccoli and homemade courgette and coriander soups. Or zucchini and cilantro, whatever.