A performer who looks to have stepped, perfectly formed, straight from the Summer of Love is the comedian, now Radio 2 host, Russell Brand. Chiefly, of course, it is a matter of those amazing clothes. But the sex and the drugs - in which he boasts about having freely indulged - also hark back to those joyful times.
He appears to be blessed with a genius of a public relations man (or woman) to judge by the acres of newsprint devoted to his talents. But though I had read a great deal about him, I had no idea what he was like as a performer until I heard him a few weeks ago guesting on Radio 2's Steve Wright show. He was marvellous. The paroxysms of laughter his wicked observations induced in me as I drove towards Brookes University's Wheatley campus made me seriously wonder whether radios, like mobile phones, ought to be banned from cars on safety grounds.
Now I learn that the Daily Telegraph's Gillian Reynolds, the doyenne of radio critics, has also been won over. "I am, to my astonishment, a fan," she wrote in Tuesday's newspaper. She added: "He sounds like someone with multiple personality disorder, as if Kenneth Williams were having simultaneous conversations with himself, Will Self, Harold Steptoe and Kenneth Branagh."
Though I usually have rather better things to do on a Saturday night than listen to Radio 2 (enjoying Radio 3's Live from the Met, resuming tomorrow, is one), I must really make a point of tuning into Brand's late-night show. And try to ensure I am not behind the wheel at the time.
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