Russell will make such a fine father

AHEARTY mazeltov to Russell Brand and his girlfriend Laura Gallacher on the exciting news that they are expecting a baby. If you are expecting a disapproving column from me holding forth on Russell’s shortcomings and listing the reasons why I do not think he is suitable dad material, you have come to the wrong place.

Russell will be the most magical and downright remarkable father the world has ever seen.

Imagine Willy Wonka mixed with Santa Claus with a glorious sprinkling of Prince Charming and delicious dollops of Kenneth Williams. Fling into the splendiferous mix a fervent desire to be a better father than his own dad managed to be to him, fierce intelligence, boundless energy and prodigious kindness born of being brought low by drug addiction and the patience required to work daily on recovery and you have the recipe for a monumentally memorable dad.

I think it’s fair to say that Russell and I were friends. I met him when I appeared on Big Brother’s Big Mouth. He was the presenter and I was almost literally felled by the sheer force of his inventiveness. I had never encountered so capricious a brain, so effervescent a vocabulary or so bewildering a personality. He made every other autocue-reading presenter seem a cardboard cut-out dullard.

I could not bear to tear myself away. Fortunately one of his team told me Russell was giving his new stand-up material a trial at a tiny pub in Camden that night. If I fancied coming along I would get the chance to experience his velocity even more intensely.

I took my 14-year-old daughter. That proves how little I knew of the man or what was about to hit us. Propelled on an avalanche of invective, metaphor, poetry and depravity we hurtled through his drug-addled, sex-crazed, hilarious, heart-wrenching and blood-curdling autobiography.

By the end we were repelled, fascinated and besotted. I started to write about his genius in this column. He sent me suggestive yet beautifully haunting texts from the bath. I leant him my black eye-liner at a party. He co-hosted my Saturday morning local radio show with me in a market in Essex just for a laugh. I liked him tremendously.

THEN came the Jonathan Ross, Andrew Sachs debacle, Russell’s stricken and sincere apology and his departure for Hollywood. He starred in Get Him To The Greek and Arthur, fell in love with and married Katy Perry and transformed himself from a fairly smalltime TV presenter and comic to an internationally recognised household name.

People saw in him what I had seen: irrepressible enthusiasm, a unique world view and a kind heart. His “Don’t vote, kids” electioneering and interview with Ed Miliband was not my cup of tea but there’s never a dull moment with Russell. around. Love to mum and dad to be and what a lucky baby to have so unusual and talented a father.