T.W.
Monday 1st June 2009 4:08am [Edited]
15,786 posts
I've enjoyed Stewart Lee's series more than pretty much any stand-up show (made for TV) I've seen in years. An original and intelligent voice in stand-up, where the audience is not treated like a bunch of Pavlovian laugh-receptor monkeys. There is a wonderful use of language, a trait he shares with another favourite, Dylan Moran. (Mark Lamar was an incredibly clever stand-up as well.)
There's an old quote from Jerry Sadowitz (talking about the rise of "alternative" comedy in the 1980s) where he says that "Alexei Sayle opened the doors to the possibilities of stand-up comedy. Then Ben Elton came along and closed them".
I feel that there are very few original voices (especially of prominence) in stand-up comedy. The 1990s increasingly homogenised stand-up into this hackneyed gag-fest. Jimmy Carr is ultimately the new Ben Elton. Stand-up now just seems really limited. A bunch of drones touring the country sharing and adapting the same old tired one and two-liners to audiences who will begin to watch YouTube clips on their mobiles if the comedian dares to develop a comic idea which takes over two minutes to realise. Nothing original to say, because the only life experience they really have is of being on the road, isolated from humanity, chasing the money, re-telling someone's humourous gig-related anecdotes as though they were their own. Until due to slick delivery and a complete willingness to sell-out their last shreds of credibility, they are plucked from the circuit and set-down in a chair on an equally asinine panel show. Where they can continue to spout their facile wit through their smug blow-holes, whilst seeing all but humanity through their dead eyes.
Um...