RUSSELL BRAND: TREW WORLD ORDER
CAST: Russell Brand, Mr Gee
VENUE: The Teatro at Montecasino in Joburg and GrandWest Casino and Entertainment World’s Grand Arena in Cape Town
UNTIL: Friday and Saturday, respectively.
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Helen Herimbi
‘Sorry I’m a little late,” Russell Brand says through raucous applause, “like, a year late, but it’s difficult to get into your country.” The British comedian and actor doesn’t mean making us wait while we sat through Greg “Mr Gee” Sekweyama as the opening act or the 20-minute interval between Mr Gee’s set and Brand’s.
He’s referring to the time his Messiah Complex tour was supposed to swing our way and, at the last minute, the funnyman never made it. But he is obviously – judging from the packed Teatro theatre – forgiven. A peculiar part of this tour is getting Mr Gee to open for him. The balding comedian is also a poet and never lets you forget it. The poems aren’t funny. They are meant to be thought-provoking and socially conscious – and they are really boring.
Social consciousness has become Brand’s chosen cross to bear in recent years and Trew World Order is a play on the “New World Order” phrase. So it’s expected that he discuss his run-ins with the media about his beliefs. But that’s all the hour-and-a-half show is about. That, and a few Katy Perry jokes.
Brand is a not your run-of-the-mill kind of stand-up comic. No, you go into his shows knowing that there will be a little, okay a lot, of cursing. You go knowing he will still bring the crudely hilarious and you go knowing there are no sacred cows. So based on those factors, Brand does a good job of being himself. The word “narcissist” in relation to him comes up a lot.
A little while into the show, it’s easy to see why. He’s not bothered to practice a tailor-made set till perfect so he just writes statistics about the country on his palm. He also keeps pages on a table nearby with different slang words and their meanings printed on them.
It’s understandable that he wouldn’t know how to pronounce rude Afrikaans words, but it’s actually endearing to see how the audience help him along and latch onto his every gag – even when it’s aimed at them – with the encouragement of a stan. What is surprising, however, is that he wasn’t given a cordless mic to present his multi-media-reliant set.
It’s not clear if the cord is meant to be there for humourous effect as he delves into the crowd and the cord snakes over people’s heads as he does so. But it’s cool that he gets involved – even pulling out the kind of impassioned tone delivered by pastors as he talks to individuals.
It’s also interesting that he pokes fun at himself by using footage of events that actually happened. If you’ve ever watched a video or news clip and thought, ‘what a tjop!’, he pulls up some of those videos and joins you in acknowledging his “tjopiness”. He achieved this in spite of a technical glitch.
But while it’s great that he is poking fun at himself, it’s a joke that gets tired quite quickly if we keep seeing the same footage paused, then explained, then played, then repeated for over an hour.