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| Reporters don’t want to miss a word Russell Brand says |
BEVERLY HILLS, CA–Tonight is the final night of the initial six-episode test run for Russell Brand’s late night series Brand X. It airs on FX and FX Canada at 11 p.m.
The cable network has already ordered seven more episodes featuring the blunt Brit, although the series has only been drawing so-so ratings. The new episodes will premiere in October.
The problem, as I see it, is harnessing Brand’s kinetic mental and physical energy into some sort of coherent format. When I tune in, I feel like I’ve missed the beginning of the show, that it kind of starts in the middle.
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| Brand indicates the days he’s gone sockless |
Brand suggested changes will be coming. Right now, he interacts with his studio audience in what looks like a high school theatre. He riffs on the news, throwing headlines around, distilling it through his active mind and seeing what sticks. That approach has been hit and miss.
Maybe they should start the show with Brand at a desk like Jon Stewart, then have him kick it over. Maybe they should just follow him around as he rants, a half hour version of Rick Mercer’s bit.
Or they should just shoot Brand’s press tour sessions. They’re bloody brilliant, hilarious, although most of the content probably would not pass muster with standards and practices.
Brand had critics in stitches last week as he succinctly summed up the appeal of Sarah Palin, this tour’s hot button after her distracting NBC party appearance.
“I think the reason Sarah Palin has been so long tolerated is because of the latent inquisition around the vagina.” Critics seemed stumped; this was cryptic even by Brand’s elastic standards.
Brand broke it down for us. “People want to f— her, don’t they?”
As Homer Simpson once said, “it’s funny because it’s true.”
“That’s why you tolerate the other stuff,” he continued on Palin. “You think, okay, that is a mad thing to say about seeing Russia out your window, but the dick don’t lie.”
FX head of publicity John Solberg was standing at the podium, trying not to wince. The session was already into overtime. “John, you could have had me out of here before I said that,” Brand pointed out. “That’s all they’re going to write about now. I was trying to get changes to the format. Now, all of a sudden, I’d f— Sarah Palin.”
The dick don’t lie.
