Is it my imagination or, after a heady week of Manuelgate, are Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand already being repositioned as burning ‘comedy martyrs’? As most people will be aware by now, Ross has been suspended and Brand has resigned (along with Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas) after leaving lewd messages on the answerphone of 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, announcing that Brand had ‘fucked his granddaughter’, Georgina Baillie, of dance troupe the Satanic Sluts. Was their behaviour wrong? 30,000 complaints say it was. Why then do I keep reading that this was a mere ‘age-defined’ rumpus (as in: the young and groovy got the joke, the old and out of touch didn’t)? By the end of the week, Brand’s friend Noel Gallagher opined that it was ‘them and us’. Meanwhile, Little Britain’s David Walliams was photographed visiting Brand’s home ‘in support’, as though Brand had suddenly morphed into British comedy’s Aung San Suu Kyi. All most amusing (more so than the original call), but also confusing. It’s as if the British public were being invited to consider that the legacy of Manuelgate would be a muzzle on comedy per se and to view Ross and Brand as the aforementioned ‘martyrs’, whose only real ‘crime’ was to push the boundaries of edgy comedy. It’s a compelling thought, until you think - this is Jonathan Ross we’re talking about. The last time I saw him, he was trying to look up Kelly Brook’s skirt. Ross and Brand were totally in the wrong about those calls. Not only was it ‘cultural bullying’ in its most pathetic form (if you don’t find this funny, you’re a fogey!), it was a gross abuse of power, the pair of them seemingly coming to the conclusion that they could do as they liked because an elderly, reclusive actor such as Sachs could not possibly compete against their combined star-power. Grim. Brand is also a hypocrite. When I interviewed him, he was reticent and gentlemanly when I asked him about his fling with Kate Moss. His subsequent exposure of Baillie proved what I’ve long suspected - that elitism breeds a peculiar form of sexism and even the most ‘anarchic’ of performers observes the celebrity food chain, protecting the famous even as they trash the unknown. That said, Brand was always a left-field quantity and it is doubtful he will be harmed by this, especially as he had the decency to resign in an attempt to save Douglas. By contrast, Ross may find, once the storm has passed, that he has been fatally exposed professionally. Indeed, by far the most surreal aspects of all this has been the absence of public support for Ross, certainly on blogs I’ve seen, for the first time calling into question his status as ‘Britain’s best-loved entertainer’. It’s a shocking thought, on a par with ‘Brucie can’t dance!’ but it is out there now. Manuelgate may one day be looked back on as a giant, unofficial vox pop on what the public really thought of Ross, not so much in terms of the Sachs hoo-ha, but the long-term disenchantment with his output. Indeed, while it would be tragic if genuinely inventive shows such as Mock the Week were to end up muzzled, Ross’s increasingly smutty and dull show has been underperforming for some time. The sad thing is that many people such as me started off as staunch fans of Ross on TV and radio. There was a time I could have argued your ear off about how inspired, hilarious ‘Wossy’ was worth every penny of his £18m BBC deal. Sadly, since then, there have been too many Fridays watching him grovelling to ‘Hollywood legends’, flirting with increasingly crude aggression with females and, worst of all, trading sweary, in-joke banter with British stars he obviously socialises with, to the point where you feel quite faint with shame for all concerned. And if I, a London-based hack and so, by definition, a ‘media whore’, find this hard to watch, how, one wonders, is it playing in Lowestoft? To my mind, this is what Ross should be mulling over right now - not the big mistake he has just made (the supposed pushing of comic boundaries), but all the previous ones - where he did anything but push comic boundaries, instead pushing his luck to the point where he lost that most priceless entertainment commodity of all - public goodwill. Indeed, for former fans like myself, this is an opportunity for Ross to reset and get back to being ‘worth every penny’. As for any claim to martyrdom, it seems poor Lesley Douglas must fly that flag alone. How the Reservoir Toffs could storm to a snap election victory I am feeling warm voting fuzzies towards George Osborne and the rest of the Conservatives right now. Not for any policies they may have for leading the country out of trouble - we’re still a little vague on that, aren’t we, guys? But none of that matters because they’ve managed to distract the public by releasing another funny photograph. This time, Osborne is dressed like a crimp-haired reject from Spandau Ballet, whom, if I remember rightly, also had a fashion moment involving chapped skin and plus fours. And though everyone else in the photograph looks very dashing, they also look a bit Reservoir Toffs, as if, after too much port and a screening of Lindsay Anderson’s If… they might take their shooters and terrorise the local constabulary. It’s George who catches the eye - he looks so sweet, clever, thoughtful, slightly bullied actually. And now I’m weeping as I type. It’s a bit like a Westminster X Factor, when a contestant shows their vulnerability via their backstory. What black heart wouldn’t warm to this man? All this comes after that other fabulous piccy of Dave, George and the rest of the Bullingdon gang all dressed up in their tails. It has to be said: Labour have been totally outclassed photograph-wise. All we ever got from them was that prog-rock one of Blair with the guitar. And as for the one of Gordon Brown with the greasy side parting, looking as if he’d never had a girlfriend … It makes you wonder - how many more fabulously funny photographs have the Tories got up their sleeves - are they planning on a phased release, to keep the public laughing and totally on their side until the next election? The waiting is killing me. Admittedly, I was bit annoyed when the Bullingdon photos first came out (boring, class-based gripes - nothing important), but now I have seen the error of my ways. If the Tories can keep the photos coming to this high standard, they may be on to a winner. What’s the best cure for the credit crunch? More shops You’ll have to excuse me if I sound bitter about Westfield, the recently opened giant shopping emporium in London’s Shepherd’s Bush. It is the third largest in the UK, spread over 43 acres, costing £1.7bn, with some 280 ‘luxury outlets’, as well as 50 restaurants and 14 cinemas. But to hell with the stats. As a long-time Bush-dweller, I was there for most of the time it was being built, putting up with the scaffolding, ugly cranes and over-friendly builders. Then when I leave, they finally finish the damn thing. Stands to reason I feel a bit cheated - like a new dad thrown out of the room in the last few seconds of a long and exhausting labour. Now that Westfield is open, the reactions have been interesting. Although everyone doomily predicted a mistimed consumer disaster, it had an estimated 100,000 shoppers through its doors on the first day alone. Could this be the shopping centre the credit crunch forgot? Indeed, while some may view this as depressing evidence that, recession or not, people will never learn, to me, the Westfield phenomenon says something rather beautiful about the resilient nature of the British spirit (the women anyway). The whole scenario is akin to a retail version of Field of Dreams. Indeed, I can just see a ghostly Ray Liotta now: ‘Build a branch of Monsoon and they will come.’ Jonathan Ross Russell Brand Celebrity guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
David, as much as I love him, pooped out and didn’t feel like participating at all. Ah well. Our night was a quite one … we had a nice dinner at Rambutan (S&A had never been before) and then chilled at their place for a while afterward. They were wiped, we were wiped … it was an early night. Not sure what’s on tap for ce soir … I don’t expect we’ll do anything all that crazy … it’s cloudy and cooler today so it might be a quiet one for us. 
