Brand to host C4 stand-up show

Russell Brand is to host a one-off Saturday Live-style comedy show for Channel 4.

The hour-long show will air in January and feature comics from Britain and America, performing stand-up and sketches in front of a live audience.

If it proves popular, Channel 4 may consider more episodes with other comedians acting as compere.

The show – which has yet to be titled - comes as BBC Three also launches a show inspired by the same Saturday Live format, provisionally called The Wall.

C4’s head of entertainment Andrew Newman told trade magazie Broadcast: ‘This'll give [Brand] the chance to try out new stuff and play to his strengths by giving him people to bounce off.’

The show will be produced by Objective Productions, who were behind BBC Two’s recent Peter Serafinowicz Show, with Brand's company Vanity.

It was announced as part of Channel 4’s winter schedule, unveiled today, that also includes teturns of My Name Is Earl, Balls of Steel, The Law of the Playground and Modern Toss.

The channel has also imported the US youth comedy Reaper, about a life-long slacker who, on his 21st birthday, discovers that his parents sold his soul to Satan and must now work as the Devil’s bounty hunter, capturing Hell's escapees.

Here’s the trailer

Published: 21 Nov 2007