By some distance the main talking point in comedy circles over the weekend has been the Channel 4 Dispatches exposé of Russell Brand. This was the sort of thing that had been hinted at but had never broken cover before, but nevertheless, we were all keen to see exactly what case the producers had built and speaking personally, I thought it credible. There were parts that were grim and uncomfortable listening, and clearly amounted to serious allegations. 

Brand has vehemently denied the “very, very serious criminal allegations” and insists that his relationships have been consensual. Reaction has been predictably divided along the usual tribal lines, and I don’t particularly feel you need my thoughts on whether this was trial by media. One thing I do want to say, however, is that Brand is not now and never was a comedian. 

Not really, not at least as I and most of my colleagues understand the term, and certainly not on what we fondly call “the circuit”, that loose affiliation of purpose built clubs, repurposed pubs and the odd provincial golf club. We didn’t claim him as one of ours made good and we don’t want him landed on us now he’s gone bad.

Yes, he stood on stage with a microphone and made people laugh, and I can certainly understand many people feeling any further distinction being little more than quibble. But it’s not. He was not a comedian. It was just one of the shapes he shifted through on his way to the celebrity he craved.

And this matters, because it is important to know which cultures, which ecosystems apparently allowed something like this to flourish unchecked, especially when one of them – mine – is still struggling to regain pre-Covid viability.

Brand was and is a TV/Tabloid/PR construct and that is the sewer you need to navigate if you want to understand the culture and the incentives that allowed him to thrive, that silenced tongues and blinded eyes. Pretty much the exact same culture, in fact, that allowed his precursors in disgrace to thrive before him. He was first and last a bird of paradise, performing an elaborate courtship dance in a clearing in the media jungle.

This would not have been tolerated on the circuit when I was starting out. I was a stand up from 1996 and gigged hard until 2010 or so. I didn’t see Brand on a bill once. I’m sure he did gigs but so did a bloke who did Lancaster bomber noises. I’ve been in multiple dressing rooms with everyone else from that era, however quickly they elevated to TV and tour shows. That’s how it works. 

Instead, Brand was the product of the very culture that Channel 4 deliberately cultivated like a left wing Daily Mail sidebar of shame. And to be fair, the programme makers themselves emphasised this too, the extent to which he was both shielded and encouraged in his depravity.

My honest gut feeling was that he would have been despised in 90 per cent of “dressing” rooms on the circuit. They were old fashioned enough on the whole and if nothing else he showed some self-awareness in steering clear of the place and booking himself on the fast track to notoriety via Big Brother and Bizarre.

I am sure there will be some who think this is of minor importance. But I think it matters, because live comedy is a self-policing space and on the whole I think it does pretty well.