Russell Brand steals Ed Miliband’s limelight in The Trews interview

It starts, rather ominously, on Russell Brand’s bed, where the lothario turned political interviewer is preparing to welcome Ed Miliband to his Shoreditch loft.

 

Things quickly move from the bedroom to the kitchen. Ed Miliband looks rather terrified as the questioning starts, and it’s no wonder. Kitchens are a dangerous place for a politician to find themselves in these days.

 

The Labour leader does assert himself though, telling the wannabe revolutionary Brand that he is “just totally wrong” in his belief politics does not make a difference. 

 

This defiance gets a grumpy “go on mate” from Brand, furious someone has dared to disagree with him.

 

All the way though, the viewer gets the sense that Brand is irritated when Miliband speaks. Shouts of “yeah” or an erratic follow-up question punctuate answers, with Brand increasingly creeping into Miliband’s body space.

 

He is meant to be the subject of the video, but the potential PM is merely a platform from which Brand can extensively spout his views.

 

It’s frustrating, because there are moments where the conversation becomes genuinely insightful and interesting, when Labour’s vision for the future is drawn out.

 

Those moments are fleeting though, a small lull between Brand’s whirling hands, hair, and diatribes.

 

Perhaps the physical closeness had an effect on Miliband, because, as if by osmosis, he appears to take on Brand’s estuary tones.  “It ain’t going to be like that” he says one point.

 

It turns out Labour are only the warm up act though. Brand has met Natalie Bennett and her minder Caroline Lucas, for another political interview video. They’re not going to Brand’s loft though, because, he assures us, he is a gentleman… 

 

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