The investigation of two horrific mass murders leads to the capture and trial of the psychotic pseudo-hippie Charles Manson and his "family".
The biography of former Beatle, John Lennon—narrated by Lennon himself—with extensive material from Yoko Ono's personal collection, previously unseen footage from Lennon's private archives, and interviews with David Bowie, his first wife Cynthia, second wife Yoko Ono and sons Julian and Sean.
They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.
Recorded live at Hammersmith Apollo, Russell questions the values of heroes and leaders. ‘Messiah Complex’ is a disorder where sufferers think they might be the messiah. Did Jesus have it? What about Che Guevara, Gandhi, Malcolm X and Hitler? All these men have shaped our lives and influenced the way we think. Their images are used to represent ideas that often do not relate to them at all. Would Gandhi be into Apple? Would Che Guevara endorse Madonna? Would Jesus be into Christianity? He concludes it’s all a load of rubbish and encourages the audience to stop voting, ignore advertising, look to the transcendent within themselves and others...and kick over some bins on their way home. Plus there’s sex. Obviously.
