What’s the Difference Between Russell Brand and a Mushroom?

Very little. Neither are funny and both thrive on horse-s***.

Russell Brand is about as funny as toothache. Like most so-called celebrities, he needs a gimmick to maintain his limited popularity and to maintain his public profile. When his stupid hairstyle was no longer enough, he created controversy by abusing a fellow performer (one who at least is able to create comedy and cause me to laugh) Andrew Sachs.

Now that the furore over that episode has died down he has said at a signing of his latest DVD that though he apologised for the incident, he found the subsequent scandal funny. More than I can say for you, Mr Brand.

This only confirms my belief that he is neither funny nor truly apologetic. If you look at the true greats of comedy, the like of Tommy Cooper who needed only to walk on stage to raise hysterics from the audience, or Frankie Howerd, Morecombe and Wise or Dave Allen it is not difficult to see that the modern trend in comedy to raise a laugh at the expense of undeserving innocent parties is the gimmick of second rate so-called comedians, a ploy to keep themselves in the public eye and to hide their lack of skill with controversy.

I may sound biased, and perhaps I am. (And perhaps with good reason.) But I have tried to watch Mr Brand. I just couldn't see the humour in his ranting. He tried too hard to be 'in your face' but without the finesse of greats like Bill Hicks who too was controversial, but raged against the establishment and its representatives and as far as I am aware never abused a fellow performer, always had a point to make and didn't use abuse for its own sake or to divert attention from a lack of talent.

Unfortunately, today's audience encourages such behaviour. The paymasters know it improves viewing figures and instead of the likes of Russell Brand becoming a non-entity in entertainment as would have happened in the past, the controversy keeps them in demand.

Thank heaven for the off switch.