Love for Sale, Channel 4 - TV review: Russell Brand adds surprise moral dimension to Rupert Everett documentary

Prostitution is a subject into which actors have special insight, at least according to actor Rupert Everett.

In the first part of his two-part documentary, Love for Sale (Channel 4), the star of My Best Friend's Wedding and St Trinian's made the point that acting and prostitution are not so different, really.

Last night, however, he was examining the other side of the transaction. What kind of people buy sex? And why they do it?

Everett's dirty-talking interview style could hardly be described as professionally detached, but nor is he a man to rush to judgement.

He spoke to a suburban dominatrix, a father-of-two working as a transvestite prostitute, and a man in a gimp mask, but only a matter of personal grooming elicited an eyebrow raise.

It made for an enjoyable peek behind Britain's net curtains, yet something was missing.

That something turned out to be the moral dimension, which eventually arrived in a very unexpected form – Russell Brand.

He was the only interviewee to reflect on the damage prostitution might do to both our society and our souls: "I think the problem is obviously the objectification of women, but that is a bigger problem than prostitution, that is a massive cultural problem."