Quote: swerytd @ June 1 2009, 9:17 AM BSTCareful Tim, it's after midnight and you're starting to rant again...
Yes, but these days you can rest assured that no alcohol has affected my judgement or prose. (For 2 months as of today.) So if I come across as a deranged, misanthropic wanker, then you know it's not due to booze, just because I am a deranged, misanthropic wanker.
Fair comment
Dan
You can tell I'm telling the truth by looking at my avatar. You see, no beer in my hand, no alcohol whatsoever in the picture? Case closed.
Quote: Tim Walker @ June 1 2009, 1:08 AM BSTJimmy Carr is ultimately the new Ben Elton.
New Bob Monkhouse surely?
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.
My problem with Stewart Lee is that his routines tend to come across as longer than is justified by the substance. But perhaps he works better live.
If we're talking about the new Ben Elton, I'll say two words: Marcus Brigstocke.
Quote: Timbo @ June 1 2009, 1:11 PM BSTMy problem with Stewart Lee is that his routines tend to come across as longer than is justified by the substance. But perhaps he works better live.
But, whether you enjoy him or not, this is deliberate on his part. It's certainly not a lack of craft or experience. Every extrapolation and repetition of a line or an idea has been carefully placed there.
I agree that seeing him live is the ideal situation. That should be able to be said with any stand-up. Unfortunately, there are too many comedians (and not just those already on TV) who peform live stand-up with exactly the same clinical execution as is the norm for TV stand-up.
There is no sense of a journey with the comic, no sense of a shared experience. Stewart Lee could quite have easily produced TV-slick routines in his show. He has done as a younger comedian and certainly understands the medium. He takes a risk by trying to really do a live-feeling show - with similar pacing - on TV. It doesn't always work. But as one who genuinely thinks he's superb, I did get that sense of being part of a shared experience. I got a sense that the audience was engaging as part of the act. Whether you think it worked (and I did) the lond-winded Richard Littlejohn/prostitutes/headstone carving piece makes the joke and the genuine point better than if he had not dragged it out. Bits like the ad nauseum "You've seen the rappers..." and the Del Boy falling through a bar routine work for me, because they take a simple idea and extend to an extent that Stewart Lee transcends comedy into a feeling of existential despair at the world.
On a lighter note, his reading of the Russell Brand BBLB (Celebrity BB race row) transcript was a joy and to me sums up modern Britain.
Ahem...
And on mentioning stand-ups who take you on a shared journey, do check out my mate Paul Sinha's new Edinburgh show '39 Years Of Solitude'. I've known Paul nearly 18 years and we started stand-up about the same time. Fortunately, he kept it going. He started out as a gag and pun man, but it is amazing to see just how confident and adventurous his material has become. Check him out (No, I'm not on any sort of commission). 
Quote: Timbo @ June 1 2009, 1:11 PM BSTMy problem with Stewart Lee is that his routines tend to come across as longer than is justified by the substance. But perhaps he works better live.
He's too much of a smug smartarse for my liking. He's got the sort of face you just want to punch!
He could 'ave you!
You want to punch him in the early '90s. He was skinny and effette then.
Now he's a fat, lumbering slow-mover. 
Quote: Chappers @ June 1 2009, 7:30 PM BSTHe's too much of a smug smartarse for my liking. He's got the sort of face you just want to punch!
Stewart Lee isn't a smartarse so much, as just correct about a lot of stuff. I think it's much preferable to be entertained by people who are cleverer than you, be they comedians or writers.
And as for smug, I don't think Stewart Lee is smug. Not in a world containing Michael McIntyre.
For me, I think such disappointment that I had, came from high expectations.
I'd enjoyed his show live and although I agree that live doesn't always translate to TV, I think it was more a case of seeing too many similar sets in quick succession. The only reason they seemed similar was the use of repetition. When the idea behind the topic was particularly strong, it worked – when less so, it began to verge on the aggravating, imo. The main thing for me though, was that the sketches were mostly crap. Can't really see an excuse for that.
Quote: john lucas 101 @ June 2 2009, 2:31 PM BSTAnd as for smug, I don't think Stewart Lee is smug. Not in a world containing Michael McIntyre.
you've got a good point there!
This from Stewart's own newsletter:
"STEWART LEE
IF YOU PREFER A MILDER COMEDIAN, PLEASE ASK FOR ONE
Work in progress, towards a new touring show, from the comedian currently fashionable amongst broadsheet newspaper critics due to his BBC2 series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle.
Stew says, "In this show, an account of something that happened to me in a coffee shop will be used as a convenient framing device for disparate material possibly concerning English Heritage, Top Gear, The Olympics, emigration, prawns, Bella Pasta, The National Trust, farmers, DH Lawrence, piglets, cathedrals, bees, Iggy Pop, cider adverts, riots etc etc."
As usual, expect .
1) Some punchy stuff near the top
2) inexplicable hostility towards relatively innocuous figures
3) silences
4) repetition
5) sudden and/or gradual shifts in tone, velocity and volume
6) long routines experimenting with form rather than content
7) the possibility of failure
8) a quasi-serious bit at the end.
2009 is the 22nd fringe appearance by this obtuse man.
"Lee destroys his topics with the precision, relentlessness and brutality of a medieval torturer; repeatedly and meticulously attacking the same small point until it becomes weakened to the point of collapse. Shorter jokes would be funnier, but nowhere near as transfixing, as the audience are compelled to see just how far he
dare push it, and left to marvel at the man's sheer audacity. There's some tension as to whether it will work or not, and occasionally it doesn't." - Steve Bennett,
Chortle
"Apparently ill at ease with both speech and movement, Lee's presence creates a kind of negative energy, a black hole of vacancy, pregnant with lack of meaning." - Tim
Out, Time Out London
"His whole tone is one of complete, smug condescension" - Roz Laws, Birmingham Sunday Mercury
"I thought, 'I'm funnier than Stewart Lee. If he can do it, I can'." Al Murray, The Times"
Dan
Cheers Dan, hopefully he'll do a run of this at the Soho Theatre, or similar venue.
Yeah, he said that this is work-in-progress for a national tour and also:
"STEWART LEE'S COMEDY VEHICLE DVD
Thank-you for watching this show, if you did. Figs were 1.25 million by the end, building over the series, which apparently is perfectly acceptable these days, and critical reaction was very good. People have been nice about it in pubs and in the street. I have to go to meetings soon to see if there can be a second series. There is a DVD available on September 7th, with 1 hrs of extra stuff etc."
Dan
