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Irreverent British comedian Russell Brand has signed up for a new late night TV comedy show on the FX network, starting later this year.
The brash Get Him to the Greek star, who last month split with singer Katy Perry after 14 months of marriage, will give audiences his take on politics, news and pop culture in a six episode show filmed before a live audience.
Despite having hosted several TV shows in the UK including Big Brother’s Big Mouth and MTV Live, the as yet untitled venture is Brand’s foray into US television following movie roles in Hollywood comedies Arthur and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Brand, 36, began his career as a stand-up comic in Britain and went on to prove a lively and controversial voice on British radio and television.
He also hosted a short-lived UK talk show in 2006 and was forced to resign as a BBC radio host in 2008 after making lewd, prank phone calls to former Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs.
“We’re very excited to add Russell Brand’s bracingly funny, original and honest voice to the FX comedy line-up,” Nick Grad, original programming chief at FX, said.
Grad said the show aimed to ‘strip down the hosted comedy format to its most fundamental elements and to create something daring and unfiltered for the FX audience’.
FX, the cable TV arm of Fox television, said that the 30-minute show would draw heavily on audience interaction with the host.
Brand, a self-confessed former sex, drug and alcohol addict, said he was ‘excited’ about the new venture.
Brand in December filed for divorce from Teenage Dream singer Perry, citing irreconcilable differences. The pair married in October 2010 in a lavish wedding in India.
