Russell Brand's Messiah Complex

More good news for Liverpool audiences today. He may have been warned off taking his Messiah Complex show to the Middle East, but that means Russell Brand now has time to return to the city once more - which he will be doing in December, it has been announced. "If this is the end of the world I'm going to go out laughing with an erection," so runs the provided quote from the Echo arena, who will be hosting the irrepressible comic once more on December 12 in its smaller auditorium space. Today's papers haven't seen fit to include that particular line, but I suppose it goes to show that although he might be tackling big issues, he'll definitely still be running the show in his own unique Marmite style. Messiah Complex is Brand's first world tour. More interesting than that is the fact that the subject, for once, isn't him (although that title is clearly deliberately open to interpretation). He'll be looking at four historical figures that put his own larger than life persona into the shade, to say the very least. Brand may love to talk about himself and has endless outrageous anecdotes for the live arena, but has never really created a coherent, themed show in such a way, which is what is so interesting about his latest endeavour. Having seen his previous Liverpool performances in 2007 and 2009, MADEUP can't wait to see what he comes up with, which is more than can be said for his audiences in Abu Dhabi and Lebanon, where the tour has already been cancelled for his own safety. Brand says, “I am going to tour the world with Messiah Complex, causing bother and excitement and offering opinions that have not been either solicited or thought through. Of course I'll be in English speaking countries, but also anywhere that will have me to be honest and that are relaxed about free speech. As well as theatres I will be appearing in prisons, drug rehabs, social network HQs, universities, nationalist organisations, mosques, foreclosed houses, protest sites, synagogues and in people's private homes. I dedicate this Messiah Complex tour to the four men that are it's subject, Che Guevara, Gandhi, Malcolm X and Jesus - I know this is what they would have wanted." [Then came the line about erections]. The tour hasn't even started but has already made international news, thanks in part to this car crash segment on MSNBC's Morning Joe breakfast show in which Brand came out victorious:  Tickets are on sale now, from echoarena.com or 0844 8000 400.