CONTROVERSIAL comedian, actor, presenter and author Russell Brand will be “causing bother and excitement and offering opinions that have not been solicited or thought through” at York Barbican tomorrow night.

Playing York for the first time in eight years on his first World Tour – “our one, Earth,” he says – he will be performing his Messiah Complex show to a sold-out audience.

“I’ll be dissecting various social and religious figures and the reality of their lives through comparisons of each other,” says Brand, who explains his choice of title.

“Messiah Complex is a mental disorder where you think you might be the messiah. All great people are flawed, all of us; flawed people are capable of greatness and for every identifiable icon there is an anonymous mob of unrecognised bods doing all the admin and heavy lifting. This show looks at the importance of heroes in this age of atheistic disposability. Plus there’s sex.”

Brand’s world tour is exactly that. “Of course I’ll be in Englishspeaking countries – UK, Ireland, US, Canada – but also Scandinavia, Russia, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine; anywhere that will have me, to be honest, and that is relaxed about free speech,” he says.

“As well as theatres, I’m appearing in prisons, drug rehabs, social network HQs, universities, nationalist organisations, mosques, foreclosed houses, protest sites, synagogues and in people’s private homes.”

The 38-year-old motormouth last played York in December 2006 when he booked into the Grand Opera House for two nights.

Under the headline An Offensive Brand Of Intellectual Gags, The Press reviewer Natalya Wilson wrote: “Brand aimed to discuss sex in a ‘cerebral and intellectual way’, though whether he actually succeeded was another matter, as he went on to discuss every aspect of sex in a filthy, yet honest and hilarious way, the intricacies of which cannot be discussed in a familyfriendly paper.”

The foppish leopard is not changing his spots for his new show. “I dedicate this Messiah Complex tour to the four men that are its subject: Che Guevara, Gandhi, Malcolm X and Jesus. I know this is what they would have. If this is the end of the world, I’m going to go out laughing with an erection.”