When you invite Russell Brand onstage at an awards bash you don't know quite what you are going to get. So, paradoxically, the GQ Awards should not really have been surprised earlier this week when Brand referred to the sponsors' past when he said: “If anyone knows a bit about history and fashion, you know it was Hugo Boss who made uniforms for the Nazis. But they looked f***ing amazing.” 

I wasn't there so I don't know exactly how the remark went down. But it certainly sounds as if once again Brand has been prepared to puncture the protocol of a prestigious occasion as he did when he presented the VMA Awards in 2008 and called President George Bush a "retarded cowboy". He got death threats from rednecks for that. This time he has mainly just got the red tops worked up by his outspoken outburst.

Comedians are often acclaimed for saying the things that other people are thinking, but somehow I doubt if everyone in the room at the GQ Awards was thinking about the connection between a major clothes designer and WW2. Though funnily this has come up before. I saw Brand do a warm-up of his new show at the Soho Theatre in July and while he was talking about another connection between Hitler and the modern day someone in the audience shouted out "Hugo Boss". I expect that well-read autodidact Brand already knew the link, but if he didn't he learnt it that night. And now, after this kerfuffle, it may even get a mention in the finished version of Messiah Complex, which opens in the UK in October. All comedians are self-obsesseed, but few turn their lives into their art quite as throughly as Brand.

This is one of the reasons why I like him so much. His lack of a filter or what we might call a conventional editing facility means that he is often excitingly spontaneous. It is a quality that in the wrong hands could be self-destructive, but Brand seems pretty bulletproof. His angle on a subject will invariably come from left-field. Combine that with the usual "don't diss the sponsors" etiquette of public appearances and you've got the makings of a memorable event.

A theory is that "to be a star you have to behave like a star" . It does not always work. I heard once about a rising comedian who asked for a limo to be taken to a panel show recording. The producers felt that if he was really a star-in-waiting they'd have made the effort, but they decided he wasn't that gifted and simply didn't ask him back. Brand, however, is talented enough to get away with behaving in a way that would get lesser acts deleted from contacts books.

There is always a sense that there is a little devil inside him trying to get him to say the unsayable or do the undoable. Sachsgate happened because this devil got the better of him that time. Sometimes, though, even Brand does know when to stop. Luckily he managed to resist the voices in his head telling him to grab her boob when he met the Queen in 2007 after his performance at the Royal Variety Performance. 

His antics are not always hilarious or totally thought-through, I'll be the first to admit. He came on so late at the Fairfield Halls a few years ago I almost missed the last train home and was furious with him. But in his efforts to keep ennui at bay he certainly makes things intellectually interesting. Even something as simple as getting offstage and walking through the audience feels fresh. It is simply not something comedians do very often, although Stewart Lee tried to subvert this by strolling around the stalls in his own show a few years ago. But where Brand's walkabout had a messiah-vibe to it, Lee looked more like a schlumpy tramp who had wandered into the theatre by mistake and was looking for the exit. 

In an era when so many showbiz figures play it safe it is exciting to see Brand do something controversial and dangerous. His GQ quip wasn't his best-ever moment, but long may he dare to be different. Let's just hope he keeps getting invited to awards and live events so that he gets further chances to do this sort of thing. 

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