Russell Brand’s The Emperor’s New Clothes reviewed: ‘uncomfortable viewing’

For the past year Russell Brand – who is worth an estimated £10 million – has been making a film about inequality. You may already know this. The comedian’s antics filming across the capital have regularly made the news. His attempt to storm RBS resulted in a temp angrily blogging that the palaver had caused his paella to go cold.

Meanwhile, his visit to confront the Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere about his non-dom tax status came to no avail as he wasn’t home. Not that such a small technicality has stopped the scene from being included in the final cut. Russell instead interrogates a woman over the telecom – a woman who I can only presume was Lord Rothermere’s housekeeper. What she had done to deserve the Paxman treatment over the manner in which her boss inherited his money remains unexplained.

However, this is a recurring theme in the film which focuses on the dangers of capitalism and in particular the bankers who caused the financial crash (Note: Russell says the NHS was deemed too ‘boring’ to cover by the film’s director Michael Winterbottom).