MY BOOKY WOOK by BRAND RUSSELL

Author:BRAND, RUSSELL [BRAND, RUSSELL]
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY
Published: 2011-05-13T02:42:03.173000+00:00

RUSSELL BRAND

for this hospital lottery once as well, but I just used to give

them the bare minimum I could get away with and keep the rest

of the money. I realize now how disgraceful that is, but I just

didn’t have a work ethic, and if anyone ever challenged me on it

I’d just quote George Bernard Shaw to the effect that “a true

artist would see his family starve, rather than work at anything

other than his art.”

My dad was (and is) a confident, masculine, working-class

man, and Colin, while somewhat less ebullient, was still very

much the embodiment of the big, heavy manual laborer—

always working, always drinking. I presume that feeling ostracized and alienated from them, even within my own home

growing up, encoded within me a deep sense of alienation. Th

at’s

why in any group dynamic my identity will always be defined

as an outsider rather than from within.

This is also the reason why stand-up comedy is the perfect

career for me. Not just because I’m constantly scribbling notes

inside my own mind to deal with the embarrassment I perpetually feel, but also because I’m always observing, always outside.

It’s a perfectly natural dynamic for me to stand alone in front of

thousands of people and tell ’em how I feel. The fact that I’ve

managed to make it funny is bloody convenient, because I can’t

think how else I would make them listen. V

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21

Don’t Die of Ignorance

I got very close to Karl Theobald in that confused and anxious

time after leaving Drama Centre. He comes from a working-class

background in Lowestoft. He’s a real autodidact, who always

knows loads about books, culture and art, and is very clever,

quick and funny. He was my first comedic soul mate. Th

ere was

a period when our impecunious circumstances even led us to

share the same bed—like Morecambe and Wise, dreaming of

better things.

It’s a shame that it has to be me that tells the following story,

’cos Karl always said he would tell it in his autobiography

(though obviously the fact that I’ve got there fi rst doesn’t mean

he won’t get the chance, and the more different angles people get

to hear this from the better as far as I’m concerned). We were in

bed reading Shakespeare together (oh yes, ours was a very cultural house hold).

At one point I broke away from the text and was just making

stuff up as I went along, but Karl hadn’t realized and kept looking at the book, struggling to find out where those lines were

coming from. Now obviously I’m not saying that I’m as good at

improvising dialogue as Shakespeare was at writing it—that

would be ridiculously conceited—but this story does seem to

suggest as much. Just look at the evidence.

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