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.

Russell has been announced as the host of the 2012 MTV Movie Awards which will air live from Los Angeles on June 3 at 9 pm.

Jesse Ignjatovic, executive producer of the show, had this to say about Russell:

I think Russell’s the perfect host for this show. He’s a movie star. He’s probably one of the most brilliant stand-ups that I’ve seen in his time, and he’s a rock star.

Whatever we end up creating around him within the show, he brings that danger thing as well. We’d love for the show to live there, where you don’t know how he’s going to react to something in the moment. He’s so sharp and witty and on his game that that’s an exciting place to live.

He has amazing comedic chops. He’s brilliant. He touches all of the areas that I think are important to us. Add to that I think he’s one of the most professional people I’ve worked with in terms of comedians. He’s well-studied and very dedicated to his craft. I think we’re very fortunate that he said ‘yes.’

Well, I kind of think Russell is too good for MTV, but I can’t argue with the rest of those comments!

It’ll be good promotion for Rock of Ages and Brand X as well, both of which come out in June.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending two performances of What About Dick?, a stage play by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, starring our own Russell Brand in the title role.

What About Dick? also stars such titans of British comedy as Eddie Izzard, Tracey Ullman, Billy Connolly, and Tim Curry.

The play is set “between 1910 and eight o’clock,” according to Idle, and is performed as a radio play, with the actors reading from scripts. The stage is set to look like a cozy living room, with a rug, couch, and chairs. All the actors remain on stage at all times, whether they’re speaking or not, and they simply sit down in one of the chairs if they’re not in a particular scene.

I’m not sure I can accurately describe the plot, which almost didn’t seem like a plot, but more like a loose narrative on which to base a whole lot of double entendres and weird but wonderful conversations. Basically, it was about a piano, but the piano is a metaphor for numerous things, and not an actual piano. And the piano is played by Eric Idle, who is the narrator of the story. See what I mean about it being hard to explain?

In all honesty, it took me a while to warm up to the play on the first night that I saw it. That could be partly because my companions and I encountered so much traffic on the way to the theatre that we were almost 15 minutes late, which made me so stressed and flustered that it took me a few minutes to relax and settle in. But it was also the style of the play — I’m not sure what I was expecting, but at first I found it hard to follow, and I thought the jokes weren’t really my style of humor (or humour). For example, one of the first lines is that someone says “Have you seen Dick?” and Tracey Ullman’s character, an older woman, says “Oh, not in many years….” before realizing they were talking about her nephew, Dick. There were a lot of those broad, obvious “dick” jokes.

But that’s not to say it isn’t funny. It is. I soon found out, there was a lot more to it than those “dick” jokes. This is because every performer on stage is so insanely clever and good at what he or she does. Each of them is quick, lively, and charismatic. And there were so many different accents flying across the stage (often by a single actor playing multiple parts) that it was dizzying.

It didn’t seem to matter what the play was actually about, because it was just enjoyable to watch these actors do their thing. I especially enjoyed Eddie Izzard, who is a master of comic timing, and Billy Connolly, with whom I wasn’t very familiar before the play. His character has such a thick Scottish accent, it’s nearly impossible to understand a word he says, which somehow just makes it funnier. One running joke was that every time he would go on a rant, another character would wonder, “Did he just offer us a holiday in Scotland?”

And of course, there was Russell. Lovely, brilliant Russell was the star. He played both Dick and another character called “Leonard Bastard,” an unemployed Cockney who’s married to one of Tracey Ullman’s characters, who is an “ass reader” (don’t ask). To differentiate between his two characters, Russ wore a plaid hat in his scenes as Leonard.

Russell effortlessly and enthusiastically took on both roles and had a sparkling chemistry with each of the other performers. He bounded around the stage with his long legs, and couldn’t seem to ever stand completely still, wiggling and fidgeting in an endearing way. And he even had a few scenes in which he sang! I found those scenes especially delightful. When not in a scene, Russell sat in one of the chairs on the side and watched the action with rapt attention and wide grins. He was so caught up in watching the performance that at one point he forgot he was actually in the play and that it was his turn to say something!

There were several of these “bloopers” that happened during each night of the play. For example, Russell fumbled with the pages of his script at one point and it took him several seconds to turn the page to see what his next line was. When he finally got it, it turned out that his line was simply “yes.” The timing of it, and the way he delivered it, had everyone laughing, which caused him to break character and do a little bow. In another instance where he missed a cue, he again broke character to announce, “I’m wearing my acting hat, I’m trying my hardest!” and everyone gave him a big cheer. Each of the actors had little “ad-lib” moments like this and it gave the show such a spontaneous, fun feel.

By the second night’s show, I was laughing from the beginning (Eddie Izzard did a hilarious list of “instructions” for the audience to follow during the show) and laughed the whole way through. I think after I got into the rhythm and the “world” of the play, everything made a lot more sense and was therefore much funnier. Or maybe I just got caught up in the infectious enthusiasm of the cast and the audience. Either way, it was incredibly fun and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to see it twice.

Here are some photos I took. I don’t think photography was allowed, so I apologize if Mr. Idle ever sees this, but I couldn’t resist (and I would never try to profit from this in any way – this is just to give other fans an idea of what it was like). Oh, and each performance was filmed, so sometime in the near future there will be a fully professional DVD for everyone to enjoy!

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(For another review of the play, go here: An Evening of Dick.)

Russell celebrates West Ham United’s win against Cardiff City at the Boleyn Ground on May 7, 2012 in London, England.

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Russell Brand attends Nancy’s Garden party fundraiser benefiting Los Angeles Area locals Nancy and Jay Westbrook at Miauhaus Studios on April 29, 2012 in Los Angeles, California.

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This is the first review I’ve found for What About Dick, which had its first of four performances last night in Los Angeles.

Excerpt from Huffington Post:

It proved to be one of the most exciting theatrical evenings of my eventful life. Utter madness, brilliant innovation, weirdly wonderful… and deeply moving. Think of a half-dozen of the greatest comic talents of the English-speaking world on one stage for an evening of somewhat scripted, somewhat improvised performance, and you will understand what I mean. The lead role in what is basically a radio play set at the self-same Orpheum Theatre during a radio broadcast in 1941 with the cast reading from scripts, was played by that tabloid British actor/comedien/ bad boy (ex-husband of Katy Perry) Russell Brand.

Read the rest here.

I don’t like that the first word used to describe Russell here is “tabloid” or that he continues to be referred to in relation to Katy Perry, but whatever … obviously this guy isn’t particularly a fan and he still says Russell did a good job, so that’s what matters.

“Porn in a Library”

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“Revolution Against Us”

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“Benevolence and Joy”

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Source: BrandX Youtube Channel