Brand on Hold

The more I heard about, listen to or generally find out about Russell Brand the more I like him.

His BBC 6music show is brilliant, it’s inane, funny and shockingly surreal – it’s everything the Ricky Gervais show could have been if it was presented by someone with a brilliantly outgoing and over the top personality.

However, because of the time the show is on I don’t get to hear it live so when they announced it would be podcast I was jumping for joy and the podcast is brilliant – featuring the best talkie bits of the show + an often comedy gem of an intro/outro.

This week though – there won’t be a Russell Brand Podcast – he has asked 6music not to publish it because he wasn’t happy with a cut made.

There was a ‘controversial’ part of the show where CBBC presenter and the wheelchair-using basketball player in BBC ONE idents, Ade Adepitan talked about being abused by doormen at a London nightclub.

Apparently Adepitan has claimed that a doorman at Modiva nightclub refused to let him in, swore at him and called him a ‘cripple’.

Russell Brand told the BBC that “What Ade said made me really unhappy because he is my friend and a lovely person and I felt I was in a position to do something about what happened to him,”

“I love that podcast and I really want it to work. But in my position you spend so much time talking rubbish. It is not often you get to highlight an issue like this.”

I can’t see why the BBC couldn’t publish it – if it isn’t true then they could get in some serious hot water over the claims so it’s better to play it safe and leave it off a format that can be downloaded and easily kept.

However I do admire Russell Brand for standing up for something that is important to him.