/... bi-polar isnt really a thing in itself, more a spectrum of conditions, on which medical knowledge is still pretty hazy. There are lots of people diagnosed with bipolar who appear to act in very different ways.
I am not sure I agree with that wholly. I have an interest in bipolar since contracting it as a late onset acute condition in 2004, I have spent months in hospital with bipolar people, spent time with psychiatrists and psychologists and key workers of various kinds, read very widely about it and still spend hours a week on bipolar forums where the main topic of discussion is the condition itself.
Yes there is variety in how people present with it but the theme is consistent, an inability to control mood swings which in the main are more significant than those of the general public. Some people go up (Hypomania and Mania), some go down (depression), some cycle over a period of years, some a period of months while others sometimes cycle multiple times every day (Rapid cycling). When down people with the condition can self harm or consider or commit suicide, when up they can get grandiose ideas, can have great personal confidence, can exhibit pressure of speech, can be very creative, are often sexually promiscuous and can be profligate with money, sometimes running up large debts.
Diagnosis is that this is an affective disorder, there are graduations of diagnosis, starting with cyclothymia (which Spike Milligan I believe had), then bipolar II (which I think Stephen Fry has and probably Russell Brand also) then perhaps the most serious bipolar I in which the up stage includes psychosis and loss of all control and usually requires immediate hospitalisation.
My feeling is that Brand's condition, if he has one, is that he is up, hypomanic perhaps, probably for long periods, months or years. Perhaps he does not go down, it does happen but I recognise in his mannerisms very similar things to that which I observe in bipolar people when they are up. And in myself also.
