The gang raping necro mallards did make me laugh and this is what Lee does best.
After watching yet another stellar cameo from Kevin Eldon, it makes me ask, why doesn't he get his own show? I miss the Hobby King.
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle - Series 1 Page 13
Quote: Chris Forshaw @ March 23 2009, 11:24 PM GMTI'm quite enjoying this, but he does seem to do one of my pet peeves with stand-ups. The thing where he just keeps going on and on and on about the same thing for about 5 minutes with no new joke. Just repeating the same damn thing. Ross Noble is a swine for it.
Quote: Timbo @ March 23 2009, 11:27 PM GMTThe Del Boy routine was interminable. His approach to gag telling seems to be that because he is so much more insightful than his audience that is just going to bloody well keep going until even the most retarded of them has got the joke.
He actually spent 5 minutes on that stuff. Including the sketch. (The sketches really are a terrible interruption to the flow of the programme, and should have been aborted long before broadcast.)
Just watched it. I think the problem is he's not actually funny. Lying on the floor ranting about Del Boy just made him look mentally ill frankly.
He comes across as arrogant and condescending. All popular culture is shit and he just sneers. Not impressive.
Yeah Kevin Eldon is fantastic, he can add so much to a show, no matter how small is role is or how crap the show is (Hyperdrive). Someone get this man a sketch show!
Quote: Maurice Minor @ March 23 2009, 11:31 PM GMTJust watched it. I think the problem is he's not actually funny. Lying on the floor ranting about Del Boy just made him look mentally ill frankly.
He comes across as arrogant and condescending. All popular culture is shit and he just sneers. Not impressive.
I like you.
Oh go and make a we hate are wrong about Stewart Lee thread.
Quote: Maurice Minor @ March 23 2009, 11:31 PM GMTJust watched it. I think the problem is he's not actually funny. Lying on the floor ranting about Del Boy just made him look mentally ill frankly.
Nil, here we go!
Quote: Maurice Minor @ March 23 2009, 11:31 PM GMTAll popular culture is shit and he just sneers. Not impressive.
Do rather agree. Nothing wrong with bitching about culture (I do it enough), but he just doesn't do it well.
I'd like to say I find the sketches funnier than him. Does he write them or is that Armando Iannucci?
Quote: Aaron @ March 23 2009, 11:30 PM GMT
(The sketches really are a terrible interruption to the flow of the programme, and should have been aborted long before broadcast.)
Totally agree, even the Waiting For Godot segment seemed to drag laboriously.
The advice that's always given to writers is 'write what you know' which I think was self evident by the standard of this week's show.
Lee doesn't strike me as an avid television watcher, that's why so many of his barbs missed the mark. (And probably why his first show about books was so good).
I know I keep mentioning Charlie Brooker, but there is a man with a true love / hate relationship with television, who's not afraid to poke fun at himself and the bizarre industry he's become a part of.
Stick with the intellectual posh stuff Mr. Lee, because when you try to rough it with the hoi polloi, your fish out of watered-ness is blatantly obvious.
BTW I'm only critical because I like Stewart Lee's brand of comedy so much and when it doesn't deliver, it's a terrible blow.
I prefered last week's but I still liked tonight's episode. I did think his 'targets' were a bit week though.
Is the pacing of this show similar to his other work? The content feels like it needs to be reeled off with real passion, anger. Really kicked. And yet he meanders along, with so little actual material that he finds time to repeat one single point for 5 minutes, making a handful of quaint observations, with a tone that seems like HE is already tired of what he's saying, never mind anyone else.
I think Charlie Brooker is a good comparison. You get the impression that CB actually LIKES telly, whereas Stuart Lee just derides it, and us, for watching it. Plus his targets tonight were all done by CB over the past couple of years anyway, in a faster paced, funnier and more pointed way.
Quite enjoyed last week, but this one left me rather cold. The poo-telly sketch was too long and just irritating really, and found the repeating of lines, occasionally adding a new line wearing. Maybe, as someone alluded to, I get my fix of TV sneering and wit from Charlie Brooker, who specialises in it. Actually found much of it uncomfortable because wanted to find it funny but just didn't.
Did like the bit at the end where he was hanging from the railings and saying he's miscalculated the length.
Hopefully will hit my funnybone again next week.
Wow....very weak this weak. Only laugh was Del Boy and I don't even like OFAH!
Aaron - yes, that's his style...might work well in a club where you are "trapped" in that environment and so more attentive to him.....but on TV I just want to put the kettle on when he's said the same thing for the 6th time!
I think he would do well to avoid those wee short sketches, and simply have one big extravaganza sketch like the Del Boy falling over - which was excellently done.
There were so many recycled jokes from his stand up in the first ten minutes. Quite disapointed about that. The joke about Channel 4 being shit pumped into your house and E4 being a sluice you pay for is an old one from his stand up. There was absolutely no need to demonstrate it to us - THREE TIMES!!!!!!!!!! I don't expect that from Stewart Lee. It was the kind of thing Little Britain would do. Disappointed at that.
Still, I laughed at this more than anything else in a long time, we need Stewart Lee.