Prepare for more fun and games. Russell Brand is to guest-edit an issue of the New Statesman next month. How could the international superstar have been persuaded to edit the niche Left-wing publication? Let’s not forget that his new love interest, Jemima Khan, is associate editor.
Brand contributed a piece for an edition she guest-edited in 2011. The comedian wrote an article on why Richard Dawkins was the best argument for God — he is now touring with a show called The Messiah Complex.
There’s no news on the content of the issue yet but Brand is commissioning while Khan is closely involved in the content and direction of it, or is “putting it to bed”, as they say in publishing jargon.
“It’s safe to say that it will be unlike any edition of the New Statesman ever printed before,” says one NS staffer.
It is certainly something Sidney and Beatrice Webb might not have foreseen when they established the magazine 100 years ago. Unlikely to be advertising in this issue is fashion label Hugo Boss, which Brand launched a tirade against at the GQ Awards recently.
Brand and Khan have been spotted together at a Vietnamese restaurant in Hoxton and, in his article for the Guardian, before his relationship with Khan became public, he described the new woman in his life as a “nerdish whirling dervish”. She has yet to comment on him publicly.
