No laughing matter?

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross have built their careers on talking up sex and scandal. So is this week's 'moral panic' over their on-air conduct justified?

TWO multimillionaire entertainers walk into a radio studio. They say disgustingly rude and horrible things. Hilarity does not ensue. The villagers pick up their torches (British Prime Minister Gordon Brown included) and march on the BBC.

The "moral panic" surrounding the remarks made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross about the actor Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter Georgina Baillie on the October 18th edition of Brand's radio show has turned the BBC's two biggest draws into near "folk devils".

Russell Brand has resigned from his radio show and Jonathan Ross has been suspended for 12 weeks and is now on a "final warning".

As with all "moral panics" though, the unfolding narrative has been riddled with inconsistencies and an ever-shifting blame-game. Worst of all, the focus of the "panic" has been misplaced.

From a source close to both Brand and Ross, this is what happened in their eyes: Russell Brand has built a comedy career on talking about sex non-stop - his material is riddled with salacious commentary. Jonathan Ross always had a touch of the "dirty old man" about him - something he thinks comes across as self-deprecating.

When two famous and celebrated cheeky-chappie types get together there is always going to be a bit of Alpha male competitive jousting. Brand opens proceedings with a braggadocio tale of sexual conquest of a guest's granddaughter. Ross adds some ribald comments. Fade to sounds of their mutual laughter.

The show is pre-recorded two days before its transmission date. In the high-stakes knockabout comedy world both protagonists inhabit, there is an understanding that the show will be edited down for public consumption. Neither is even slightly bothered about the content of the show. So much so that a full week after the transmission date, Brand remarks in an interview "Jonathan used the f-word on the show last week . . . but then he does fly by the seat of his pants . . . it was funny."

It is understood that the two were "mildly surprised" that the broadcast went out unedited but had a "what do you expect when you put the two of us in a room together for a pre-record?" shrug of the shoulders attitude.

They were relaxed even further by the fact that up to a week after the broadcast went out - and it was heard live by an estimated 400,000 listeners - there were only two complaints registered with the BBC switchboard (normally, a typical Brand radio show would register 10 to 20).

Neither of these complaints mentioned the content of their conversation - merely that Ross had used the F-word on a radio programme.

The story only got legs when a journalist from those well-known moral entrepreneurs The Mail On Sunday, contacted Andrew Sachs's agent in the week after the broadcast for a comment. The heavens of media-driven moral indignation opened.

Leaving aside the rather remarkable fact that 400,000 listeners didn't seem too discomforted by the indisputably wicked comments; when the army of moral indignation arrived, it was for all the wrong reasons. The focus was on the breach of privacy and common dignity and above all, the swearing - the use of the f-word. The received wisdom throughout the whole affair was that the duo's buccaneering comedy style went "too far this time".

Interestingly, Russell Brand's first public apology echoed this when he said, "I now know that you mustn't swear on someone's answer phone." However, the use of the f-word should have been the least of the duo's problems. The most damaging remarks - which were made by Jonathan Ross when he alludes to underage sex - have gone all but ignored in the "panic".

"If he's like most people of a certain age he's probably got a picture of his grandchildren when they're young right by the phone. So while he's listening to the messages he's looking at a picture of her about nine on a swing," Ross says during the broadcast. Brand replies, "She was on a swing when I met her." Ross says, "And you probably enjoyed her."

Another glaring inconsistency is the leeway allowed Ross by the BBC, (because that is how he works best), and how he has made similar-style remarks in broadcast situations before. A source refers to his constant use of "off-colour" material during the recording of his weekly TV show. The performer in Ross will be "daringly outrageous" for the benefit of the studio audience, knowing such remarks will be edited out. As they always are.

In April of this year during his TV show he told the actress Gwyneth Paltrow: "I would f**k you", but the f-word was bleeped in the broadcast. The studio audience love this sort of stuff and the suits at the BBC have a "isn't he a caution" attitude to his show. In the same month, with Russell Brand as a guest, Ross made what would be regarded as risqué sexual remarks about his young daughters and Brand that were edited out. Ross made his comments about Georgina Baillie on the offending radio show in the belief, he says, that he would, as always, be edited for public consumption. Which in no way mitigates what he said - merely gives his point of view.

This is the defence being proffered by Ross's entertainment colleagues (Ricky Gervais et al): that Ross is the way he is and if he is never let out unedited on his TV show, why did the radio programme go out unedited? All of this though ignores the fact that no one can "unedit" a profoundly vulgar and degrading message left on a 78-year-old man's mobile phone concerning his granddaughter.

Other friends and colleagues of Brand and Ross point to the rivalry between the two as being the source of the controversy. It is known that Ross is envious of Brand's comedic ability (Ross himself is a failed stand-up comic) and views Brand as a serious threat to his King of Light Entertainment crown at the BBC. When the two got together for the radio interview (Ross was plugging his new book), Brand was the first to introduce the fact that he slept with the 23-year-old Georgina Baillie (hardly news in itself). But it is Ross who transgresses, saying into Andrew Sachs's answer machine: "he f**ked your granddaughter". And it was Ross who talked about photographs of a nine-year-old girl. In effect, trying to show the new boy Brand who the "daring" comedian really was.

THE CONSPIRACY THEORY London media circles is that the breast-beating this week was all choreographed. At least one of their heads had to go and Brand volunteered his in some form of showbiz chums pact. Brand was suspended and then resigned his £200,000-a- year contract with the BBC for his two-hour weekly radio show. Basically, a nixer for him. In his video-taped resignation, he made great play of Ross being a decent and kind person. The video was basically the opening statement for the defence.

The question remaining is why did Ross keep his job when he was the chief transgressor? He has been suspended without pay from his £6 million a year job. The answer is BBC realpolitik: if he was pushed and there was legal action, Ross's defence of "never been let out unedited" would firmly place the blame on the BBC production team - and by extension, the integrity of the taxpayer-funded corporation as a whole.

HA HA HA YOU'RE FIRED

If you want to "push it out" as a broadcaster/entertainer and cultivate an image (as Brand and Ross have so assiduously done over the years) as a transgressive commentator, you really need to carry around a piece of chalk with you and learn where to draw the line each and every time you open your mouth in TV land.

The US comedian Bill Maher was sacked as the presenter of his Politically Incorrect satirical TV show when, in 2002, he voiced the opinion that the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks were not cowards. "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away," he said. "That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

Comedian Jimmy Carr (left) was almost banned from the BBC and given a severe reprimand when, on the radio show Loose Ends two years ago, he voiced the following: "The male gypsy moth can smell the female gypsy moth up to seven miles away - and that fact also works if you remove the word moth." The BBC made a hasty apology and said the remark "should never have transmitted".

Joan Rivers (left) received death threats and had many high-profile television appearances cancelled after (on a show in 2003) she joked about the compensation received by the widows of men who had been killed in the 9/11 attacks: "Don't tell me a few of those women aren't jumping for joy," she said. "I got rid of Harry and I got $5 million as well!".

Ricky Gervais (left) was labelled a "racist bigot" by ventriloquist Keith Harris after Gervais wanted Harris's character in the BBC comedy series Extras to say the line: "Is the BBC still run by Jews and homosexuals?" The role - and line - later went to ex-children's TV presenter, Keith Chegwin.

Perhaps the best female comic in the world today, Sarah Silverman (left), was pulled from many a TV schedule and almost waved goodbye to her career when three years ago she told a story on the Late Night With Conan O'Brien US TV show about trying to get out of jury duty. "A friend of mine told me that if you wrote a racial slur on the form like 'I hate chinks' you wouldn't have to do it," she said. "I didn't want to appear to be racist though, so I just wrote "I love chinks . . . and who doesn't."

The comic writer Chris Morris was labelled "The Most Evil Man In Britain" by a tabloid newspaper in 2001 after he wrote and presented a Channel 4 show called Brass Eye about paedophilia. The show was a satire on the hysterical treatment of the subject by the media and was inspired by the fact that, after a particular "name and shame" campaign in a newspaper, a paediatrician's home in the UK was attacked by an angry mob. Morris's show remains the third most complained about show ever in the UK, topped only by Celebrity Big Brother 2007and Jerry Springer: The Opera.