BB FANS

[b]Let's just get over Manuelgate..now
By Polly Hudson
Miror

Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, comedy geniuses? Now that IS funny
By Brian Reade
Mirror

Five To Air Ross/Brand Documentary

An hour-long documentary looking at the fall from grace of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross' is to be screened by Five on Wednesday.

Russell & Ross: What the F*** Was All That About? will feature an exclusive interview with burlesque dancer Georgina Baillie, who is the granddaughter of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

Brand lost his job with the BBC and Ross has been suspended for 12 weeks without pay after they called Sachs' voicemail and left lewd messages about Baillie.

The documentary will feature unseen footage of Baillie with her dance troupe The Satanic *****, as well as interviews with PR Max Clifford, ex-Heat editor Mark Frith, and Baillie's colleagues.
waveguide.co.uk

I said Russell Brand is a sad, fame-hungry pillock with very little talent.
Funny how the 'prank' phone call to Andrew Sach's transgressed... especially when Russell Brand gets very upset when people say he's only famous because of the z-list hype promoted regarding Kate Moss.
Russell Brand would have had a career as a middling presenter & mediocre comedian thanks to Big Brother's Big Mouth - with his fake persona - but z-list hype needed a push, & he & agents exploited his fling with Kate Moss.

There wasn't a chance in hell that Russell Brand would have got Hollywood movie roles & most of his dreadfully unfunny & little-watched TV series on Channel 4 without the mass z-list hype in the UK media regarding his fling with Kate Moss.

Russell Brand may have created his persona - but he's an awful actor - not that the yanks would know.

Ross Pulls Out Of Comedy Awards

Jonathan Ross has pulled out of presenting the 2008 British Comedy Awards, ITV1 has announced.

The broadcaster said it backed the presenter's decision in the wake of the Radio 2 row concerning prank calls made to Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs.

The British Comedy Awards are set to be broadcast live on ITV1 on December 6.

The ceremony is expected to go ahead, though no decision has been made over who will replace him.

The awards are in their 18th year and this would have been Ross's 17th year as host.

A spokesman for the entertainer said the British Comedy Awards was "a show he very much enjoys being part of."

However, he added, Ross did "not want his participation in this year's event to take away from the awards themselves or the many talented winners".

waveguide.co.uk




Acting Radio 2 Chief

BBC Radio 2 head of programmes Lewis Carnie is to stand in as acting controller of the station following the resignation of Lesley Douglas.

Carnie will also assume responsibility for 6Music and live music across the BBC, which fell under Douglas' remit.

Carnie this week described Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's prank calls as "offensive and insensitive".

waveguide.co.uk

Deborah Orr: Can we agree on this: you don't discuss other people's sex lives


Brand target of bitterness at BBC
Howard Jacobson: Russell Brand winked at me once. And when he winks at you, you stay winked




No BBC executive has had the courage to point out one obvious fact about this week's furore over the lewd on-air behaviour of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. The obvious fact is that no other institution galvanises public debate about cultural issues in quite the way that the corporation does.

Unfortunately, however, that strength is also a weakness. The BBC is not in a position to claim that it has provided a "public service" in its generous manufacture of a single incident that encapsulates so much that so many people feel is wrong and degraded about the way certain individuals relate to others. Always, the spotlight is on what such controversies say about the BBC, rather than what they say about wider mores.

Although a number of people have spoken in partial defence of Brand and Ross, I am not aware of anyone who claims that what Britain needs is a more relaxed attitude towards the telephoning of 78-year-old men and the regaling of them with intimate sexual details about their young relatives. Even so, despite the complaints, the BBC is keen to point out that there is "a generation gap" in reactions to the broadcast and its relatively slow-burn aftermath.

Yet even Ross, 47, and Brand, 33, displayed a dim awareness that they were way out of line at the time they were conducting the "prank". "What's that noise I hear?" Ross asked sarcastically at the end of the exchange. "It's the sound of a Sony Award heading your way." The two men were well aware that they were not engaged in the production of comic genius (although the just-quoted remark is actually reasonable amusing).

However, even though they were concerned enough to contact Georgina Baillie, the granddaughter of Andrew Sachs, and ask her to help them in smoothing over their gaffe, most of the material was still broadcast, against the wishes of Sachs. It has been suggested that the show's 25-year-old producer, Nic Philps, was too inexperienced to override the commands of the two highly paid stars. The rather more pathetic truth, surely, is that the men were so convinced of their own macho invulnerability that they were able to dismiss even their own misgivings.

Ross comes out of this debacle more poorly than Brand, not only because he didn't have the good sense to resign, but also because he is a person who believes strongly that there should be a division between the public and the private. His persona as a performer may be crude. But insomuch as he encourages intrusion into his private life at all, he always chooses to emphasise that he is an uxorious husband and a committed family man. This "family man" cannot for a moment, however, have thought about how he himself might have felt had a broadcaster rung him up and told Ross about how "he ****** your granddaughter", as Ross himself put it. (It was Ross who made the first explicit reference to Baillie, not Brand.) Nor could any of the other people involved in deciding to air this material, which is why there has been so much focus on the "chain of command" at the BBC. In truth, there was no "chain of command" as Brand's show was the independent production of his own company, the aptly titled Vanity Projects.

Anyway, neither Vanity Projects nor the BBC is by any means the only media organisation that eschews the "do as you would be done by" test when deciding on who might be the valid butt of "entertainment". There has been a great deal of discussion of "cruel comedy". But much "lighter" media comment is cruel for the sake of it, aiming to ridicule individuals without employing humour, or attempting what is ever more loosely described as "satire", at all.

There has been a lot of talk about "knowing where to draw the line". What is most worrying is that even though so many people have "had their say", little consensus has emerged over what that line may be. Partly that is simply because "taste" and "humour" are hard to define. For some people, the fact that Brand's radio show features bad language puts it beyond the pale. For others, the despicable thing is that Sachs is "an old man" (although this "old man" comes across as fabulously calm and dignified, and far better equipped to deal with life's vicissitudes than the younger men who caused the problem). For yet more, the big deal appears to be that such stunts are "funded by the licence payer" (while actual pornography is delivered free as part of one's Virgin media "package").

But the strange thing is that it is easy to observe what line has been crossed. People simply shouldn't talk publicly about the sex lives of others, because it is a gross invasion of their privacy and a refutation of human trust and intimacy. If Ross and Brand had been sensitive enough to understand this, or even if their handlers had been, there would have been no problem. The press – usually vociferous in defending the right to "kiss and tell" – has worked hard to ensure that the vulgar betrayal committed by Ross and Brand reaches the widest possible audience.

If there really is a "generation gap" between people who understand that only emotional inadequates broadcast details about their sexual partners and people who don't, then it is not the BBC that has done the most to promote this idea. But it would be nice if the corporation could start showing some understanding that this is precisely where its wilful little charges went wrong in the first place.

Georgina Baillie, pictured, the 23-year-old woman whose sexual past was plundered with such graphic vulgarity, may style herself, along with the other members of her dance troupe, as a Satanic ****. But even though she is young enough to reside on the more liberal shore of the "generation gap", she appeared in no doubt that it was wrong of Brand and Ross to talk about her in the way they did, to her grandfather or to anyone else. She's let herself down a little, perhaps, in seeking revenge by paying Brand out in kind. But are the newspapers that encouraged her to reveal details about Brand's own sexual prowess even aware that this stunt was not so very much different from the one they were so tremendously outraged by?
Independent

Parkinson Attacks Presenters

Sir Michael Parkinson has slammed presenters Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand for their "silly, obscene, tasteless and unfunny" phone calls.

The veteran chat show host said the calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs were "indefensible".

He said he had no sympathy for 33-year-old Brand who was "generously called a comedian".

But he said Ross, 47, was "very good at his job" and would bounce back.

Sir Michael told Eamonn Holmes on Radio 5 Live: "Jonathan should have more oil in his lamp frankly, more sense. Jonathan has been through a lot of television.

"He's very good at his job but he's given to fits of madness now and again and I think he had one on this occasion. As for the other guy, I don't have an opinion on the other guy."

He said when Brand arrived at the BBC there was a feeling that "sooner or later it would put them in a very embarrassing situation".

Sir Michael expressed some sympathy for Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas, who resigned over the affair, but added that "she was the one who invited him in".

He questioned the judgment of hiring someone who was sacked from MTV for coming to work dressed as Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.

"The facts are he did something that was silly, obscene, tasteless and unfunny," said Sir Michael. "He's generously called a comedian. I can't feel much sympathy for him."

waveguide.co.uk

I don't for one minute condone this 'phone prank' - for many reasons.

I don't find it 'funny' when people are made to feel uncomfortable - I don't like the shows where they bring guests on, and make fun of them. Don't get me wrong - I'm Irish, and often it seems our whole culture is based on 'slagging' others - but there's a difference between teasing someone, and them finding it amusing, and on the other hand, availing of an opportunity to take the p*ss out of someone, over and over again - when the person is clearly not finding it funny. So while it was funny once, to see Sophie Ellis Bextor being teased on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' - I can't sit through a show when it's just badger-baiting and making fun at the expense of someone else.

I love the way Hippo, AlanLapin and others hurl 'insults' at me during BB - it's fun, and they know I'm laughing - that's a whole world away from being nasty.

Also, I don't think it's ever right to do any sort of 'prank' phone call - not for anyone, in any circumstances. It's invading someone's privacy - and to do in 'on the airwaves' - horrible.

Also, I don't find it funny for one person to discuss the intimate details of their fling with another person - much less with that person's grandparent. So not funny, not good.

But I would like to point out that lots and lots of people do find Russell Brand entertaining and funny. I saw him live last year, and he was side-splitingly funny. I don't care for any of the lewd business - but to be fair, it struck me that he was making fun of himself, and his own situations, not other people.

I have always been intrigued by your assertion that Russell Brand is only famous because of his association with Kate Moss. I never knew he had anything to do with Kate Moss until you mentioned it, and anyone I've asked - his admirers and his detractors alike - had no idea that he was ever linked with Kate Moss.

Possibly it meant he got to pull strings, and got noticed by people who had influenced, and that got him jobs - I don't know.

But most people think Russell Brand became famous for presenting a Big Brother spin-off show, and then he landed his own series, and does stand-up comedy.

I didn't think he was particularly fake - in fact, I thought part of his charm (and he has some) was because he was so honest about his own life. But as time went on, I grew tired of hearing stories about him - really, I feel disappointed that he hasn't grown up a bit by now - disappointed mostly for his sake, because I think it's pretty clear that he's searching for some sort of fulfillment - even peace - which so far has eluded him. Fame, attention, and adoring fans, or any number of one-night stands is not filling the void.

Now I'm not so sure about how 'fake' he is, or otherwise - unfortunately, I've heard he's not exactly polite to people he encounters in a professional capacity. I always put a lot of store by what 'ordinary' people who encounter celebrities have to say - seems to me that the test of a person is how they treat 'ordinary' people - and often it's surprising that those personalities whom one would think are down to earth and decent are actually full of their own importance.

As for Kate Moss - she's a rich model, with a drug habit, is that correct? I hope she finds happiness, contentment, and meaning in what she does with her life from now on.

Georgina Bailie should not have had to suffer in order for Russell and Jonathan Ross to produce 'comedy'. But it seems she'll profit in one way, through all this sorry business.

I heard, Dara O'Briain - a man from my own neck of the woods, originally - say that the way comedy is done for these shows on radio and t.v. is that a whole lot of stuff is devised, acted out, and sometimes things take off on their own. But most of the stuff is not suitable for airing, and it's the job of editors and producers to choose what should be broadcast. Something went badly amiss in this instance.

There are three categories of views on this whole matter. Some people don't think it was funny, and are offended. Some think have no interest. And some think it was funny. Apparently, somewhat sadly, but perhaps also somewhat inevitably, the younger the person, the more likely they are to find it funny.

The BBC is funded by license-payers. They have a right to expect quality programming. But the license-payers are a broad church, and the person who loves edgy and controversial stuff has a right to have their tastes catered for, too. My argument would be that this if fine - PROVIDED no other person is hurt by the material.

Mr Sachs is a gentleman, that I've realised.