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(Parts 2-3)

After his triumphant return to UK standup with an intimate gig that sold out in about half an hour at the Lyric in London, Russell is back in LA and this Friday will be performing at the Acme Comedy Club.  Details and tickets can be found at LaughStub.

Also, be sure to tune in to the Ellen DeGeneres show on Thursday May 17, as Russell will chat with Ellen and will also be introduced to Sophia Grace and Rosie, the two little singing/dancing girls from Britain who have become famous via Ellen’s show.

(3 more!)

A teaser/trailer for Russell’s upcoming late night show “Brand X” has been released! The show, previously titled “Strangely Uplifting,” will premiere June 28 on FX.  It will also air on Sky Atlantic in the UK.

I can’t embed the clip here, because they’ve disabled embedding, but click the image above to watch the trailer directly on Vimeo.

From The Guardian:

Russell Brand is in talks with the BBC about presenting his first TV programme, a film about addiction, for the broadcaster since being forced out over a prank phone calls row in 2008.

The comedian – eager, it would appear, to mend fences after the scandal – has said he would waive any fee to forestall criticism of the proposed BBC3 programme.

Discussions are continuing, as the corporation weighs the sensitivities, but it is thought the film will explore the issue of addiction in a similar way to how Stephen Fry tackled depression for BBC2 in 2006.

Last year, after the death of his friend and fellow addict Amy Winehouse, Brand paid tribute to her, saying they “shared an affliction, the disease of addiction”.

Brand left the BBC in 2008 following a row over a prank phone call he and Jonathan Ross made to the actor Andrew Sachs about Sachs’s granddaughter. Since then Brand has gone on to appear in a number of Hollywood films.

He has returned to broadcasting in the UK – in 2009 he co-hosted a sports show with Noel Gallagher on TalkSport, and in 2010 appeared as a guest on Dermot O’Leary’s BBC Radio 2 show – but has not fronted a TV programme since leaving. His only recent appearance on BBC screens has been in BBC4 reruns of his BBC2 documentary, On the Road.

A BBC spokesman said: “We are working with Russell on a programme about addiction in the UK but it’s currently only in its early stages.”

Brand, who has spent time in rehab, has often called for addicts to be treated as “sick people in need of care”. He also said: “We need to review the way society treats addicts … we need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense.”

Just a reminder that if you’re in the US, you can get a free trial to EpixHD to watch the Secret Policeman’s Ball live, Sunday March 4 at 7pm Eastern.

UK viewers can watch on March 9 at 10pm on Channel 4.

Tune in to support Amnesty International and see Russell along with so many other great performers!

Early reports had indicated that Russell’s new FX talk show would premiere in April, but it has now been announced that the show will debut on June 28 instead.

FX’s summer schedule will kick off that night with the debut of Charlie Sheen’s Anger Management at 9 pm, the 2nd series of Wilfred at 10 pm, the 3rd series of Louie at 10:30, and finally, Strangely Uplifting at 11 pm.

Here’s the full rundown from The Hollywood Reporter.

Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball, which is coming to the US for the first time, will take place on March 4 in New York City at Radio City Music Hall.

Russell will be one of the featured performers, along with Coldplay, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Mumford & Sons, Reggie Watts, Fred Armisen, David Cross, Noel Fielding, Micky Flanagan, Bill Hader, Rashida Jones, Seth Meyers, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Samberg, Peter Serafinowicz, Sarah Silverman, Jack Whitehall and Kristen Wiig.

The event can be watched live via EpixHD, which is a US TV channel available via some cable providers, or via an online subscription. The good news is, they offer a 14 day free trial for the online version, so you could sign up just to watch this one program and then cancel.  As far as I can tell, both the TV channel and the online version are US-only.

In the UK, the Secret Policeman’s Ball will be broadcast on Channel 4 a few days after the live event.

You can also follow the SPB on Facebook for the latest updates.

Support Amnesty!

This is pretty cool.

A writer from LAist was clearly skeptical of the whole idea of a new show featuring Russell Brand, but he was won over by Russell’s sheer force of personality and off-the-cuff brilliance.  That’s our guy.

Here’s the relevant portion of the article:

From Louis C.K. we moved to the final FX presentation of the day, that for the tentatively titled “Strangely Uplifting,” something positioned as a Russell Brand vehicle. I was hugely resistant to the very idea of this show as I felt we had enough over-exposure to Brand to last a lifetime (anybody remember Arthur?). There was no way I was going to be interested in some reality show that followed Brand around, it seemed like an insult directed at fans of the network that has already brought us so much great comedy (“Archer,” “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” “Wilfred,” “The League,” “Louie”), but after a short statement by showrunner Troy Miller, it was all Russell Brand and the guy simply blew away the room full of jaded, out-of-touch, and mostly-antisocial “journalists.”

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From Alex Strachan, Postmedia News, one of the better articles on Russell’s TCA panel (most of them have managed to focus solely on his divorce, despite the fact that he didn’t comment on it at all!):

PASADENA, California — On paper, it must have looked like a bout between equals. In one corner, a petulant, impatient press corps, short on patience and long on attitude. North Americans. And in the other corner: Russell Brand. A Brit. An irascible Brit.

Russell Brand. Comedian. Actor. Activist. Vegan. Recovering alcoholic and recovering drug addict. Practitioner of transcendental meditation. Arrested in 2010 on suspected battery charges after he allegedly attacked a paparazzo who blocked his and then-wife Katy Perry’s way as they rushed to catch a flight at Los Angeles International Airport. Deported from Japan last May, according to London’s Daily Mail, because of his criminal record. Bon vivant. Raconteur. And a man who can hold an audience spellbound for 20 minutes and hardly ever utter the words “um” or “you know.”

In the end, of course, it was no contest.

Brand — appearing before the winter meeting of the TV Critics Association to promote Strangely Uplifting, his new late-night variety show this summer for the cable channel, FX, and its northern twin, FX Canada — was in fighting form.

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