Quote: Ian Wolf @ March 24 2009, 10:14 AM GMTProbably.
I do have to say I agreed with him on the Del Boy front. I've never through that clip of Del Boy falling was the funniest thing ever. Concerning Only Fools and Horses, the best visual gag for me was the chandelier.
Both rely on gravity, though.
Quote: chipolata @ March 24 2009, 10:05 AM GMTMy only complaint about last nights show was that TV in itself is a bit of an easy target, and something Charlie brooker has already done to brilliant effect. That said, everything he said was valid. And funny.
From an interview I read with Stewart Lee (Radio Times possibly?) it sounds like he started with a couple of easy subjects like crap celebrity books and television to ease people into the series before he gets on to the more uncomfortable subjects like religion.
Quote: chipolata @ March 24 2009, 10:22 AM GMTBoth rely on gravity, though.
And both have been repeated in clip shows to the point where all possible humour has been drained from them.
Quote: Ian Wolf @ March 24 2009, 10:14 AM GMTI do have to say I agreed with him on the Del Boy front. I've never through that clip of Del Boy falling was the funniest thing ever. Concerning Only Fools and Horses, the best visual gag for me was the chandelier.
The trouble is though that it's not really relevant what the No 1 moment was voted to be. His point (that I took from it at any rate) is that the viewers who vote for (or like) that sort of thing are braying, moronic drones incapable of independent thought; that this is idiotic television and 'aren't those people idiots for clinging to it? It's base, it's stupid, it's not clever, and, by default, so are the people who like it, unlike all the clever people who like me. Lets all congratulate ourselves.'...
Comedy is somehow supposed to be better if it's enjoyed by a select group who 'get it', and it's rubbish if the masses like it.
Unfortunately for Mr Lee, Del Boy falling through a bar was funnier than his routine last night.
One of the things I liked about the bit where Lee was on the floor, having a little conversation with himself about Del Boy, was how much the other character voice sounded like Richard Herring!
Quote: Matthew Stott @ March 24 2009, 11:35 AM GMTOne of the things I liked about the bit where Lee was on the floor, having a little conversation with himself about Del Boy, was how much the other character voice sounded like Richard Herring!
Yes, I thought that!
Quote: john lucas 101 @ March 24 2009, 11:36 AM GMTYes, I thought that!
I wish they'd do something together again, they were such a good double act.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ March 24 2009, 11:38 AM GMTI wish they'd do something together again, they were such a good double act.
They did a one-off show together last year, to celebrate This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Doubtless on YouTube.
Quote: john lucas 101 @ March 24 2009, 11:39 AM GMTThey did a one-off show together last year, to celebrate This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Doubtless on YouTube.
Yeah, I saw the shaky-cam footage.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ March 24 2009, 11:35 AM GMTOne of the things I liked about the bit where Lee was on the floor, having a little conversation with himself about Del Boy, was how much the other character voice sounded like Richard Herring!
Yep. "No Stew, you're wrong" in high West Country tones. 
Quote: Matthew Stott @ March 24 2009, 11:47 AM GMTYeah, I saw the shaky-cam footage.
Ah, yes, the shaky-cam footage, and the straining to hear! These bootleggers really need to up their game! I'm slightly ashamed that I didn't make the effort to go to that night.
Quote: john lucas 101 @ March 24 2009, 9:49 AM GMTAnd, yes, there will be people who think he's a smart-arse, but so what? Haven't we got enough thick f**king bastards on telly to last us a life time? Enough lowest common denominator arse? I think we have.
Sorry I did not see what was so intelligent about his act. Sneering about other people being stupid is not in itself clever.
The basic problem is that there are not enough gags. He gets an idea, and instead of building on it and developing it into a proper routine, he just hammers home the same point until any possible humour has been drained out of it. Yes, I am a little bored of the Del Boy clip, afters seeing it twenty times, but I was bored by Lee's routine about it before he had even finished it. If I had to sit through THAT twenty times I would be chewing my own leg off to survive.
Quote: Timbo @ March 24 2009, 11:54 AM GMTThe basic problem is that there are not enough gags. He gets an idea, and instead of building on it and developing it into a proper routine, he just hammers home the same point until any possible humour has been drained out of it.
You just don't like his style; for me there was plenty of funny, I was laughing all the way through. His way of working just isn't for you.
Well that's the key really. I can imagine his act being done with some sort of rapid-fire delivery with a lot of energy and it would really be a different matter. But he lacks energy - deliberately no doubt - and it saps the will of the viewer (this one at least).
He seems to think it's 'braver' to embrace silences and not need to keep the audience going in the same way other comics or sitcoms do. But for me it's a lesson in exactly why comics do need to keep the pace up.
Just to touch on the comparisons with Charlie Brooker. I like Brooker, he is a funny man, but there isn't real venom behind his attacks on television or not as much as Lee anyway. Because Brooker attacks shows like Big Brother and the like, but he actually likes those shows too, I mean he's best mates with Aisleyne for God's sake.
Lee actually hates the stuff he is deriding. And it may be brave or it may be stupid, but there is no other comedian out there who would so strongly slate all five terrestrial television channels in such a way, especially the channel you are on. These are points that are true and Lee may not always make them as well as he could, but nobody else is doing this. When you see other shows that attempt something similar, it is all "we're all showbiz pals really, we're all in on the joke", you don't get that with this programme, there is proper anger and passion behind what is being said.
Lee also has a distinctive voice and a clearly defined comic persona, another thing which most recent comedians lack completely. They lack it because they don't have any charisma or comic personality or they lack it because their persona is hijacked off of somebody else.
Lee is not a gag comedian, not to say that he doesn't use gags at all because he clearly does, but his style is much more in showing the idiocy of the modern world and for me and many others he does this extremely well. Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle is the most I've laughed at a recent comedy (excluding TV Burp) since early Peep Show.
As someone else mentioned, Lee did say his first two topics were a bit more broad and everyday, Books and Television, as a way to hook in casual viewers (although I think he scared them off last night) and the rest of the episodes will be a lot meatier. I think next week's topic is Political Correctness.
And also the attack of the Del Boy clip was not an attack on Only Fools & Horses in itself, who I think we'd all admit, at it's peak was a great sitcom. It was more an attack on the fact it has now become nothing more than a bunch of soundbites and clips, played over and over again every Christmas or every time a new comedy clip show emerges.
This is still the most exciting and funny thing on TV at the minute, where else can you see a 40 year old man, hanging from a railing, demanding the audience applaud him? 
