Chris Morris joins Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle Series 3
The anticipated third series of cult comedy series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle will begin on BBC Two next Saturday night.
The new series will see controversial satirist Chris Morris appear on-screen, interviewing Lee in segments split between the format's main stand-up routines, taking over from Armando Iannucci, who asked "searching questions" of Lee during Series 2.
Morris has also acted as script editor on all three series, and appeared, unannounced, live on stage at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday night to introduce the final night of Lee's Much A-Stew About Nothing tour.
According to reports, Chris Morris appeared on stage unintroduced and talked about his previous work with Stewart Lee, including an admission that Lee and comedy partner Richard Herring were, as has long been rumoured, the creators of the Alan Partridge character, from 1991 radio satire On The Hour.
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle Series 3 begins on Saturday 1st March 2014, at 10:15pm on BBC Two, and will run for six episodes. It also features Kevin Eldon and Paul Putner in filmed inserts.
Writing about the scheduling of the series and lack of prior publicity, Lee says: "There's an obvious logical problem with maintaining my persona of a man who, irrespective of his obvious privilege, seems unreasonably grumpy with the world, especially in the light of the near blanket critical acclaim lavished upon Series 2.
"We struggled to accommodate this. How would it make sense for me to maintain a grudge against comedy and all media when its machinery - The BAFTAs, The British Comedy Awards, Steve Wright In The Afternoon etc - had welcomed me into their bosoms? The fact that Series 3 is creeping out unheralded at least takes some of the curse off this problem.
"SLCV3 will, inevitably, remain something the unwary viewer discovers for themselves, and has a sense of personal ownership about."
In his e-mail newsletter, the comic added: "For me, the material is cooking with gas. And there was lots of fun real interacting with actual unpredictable live events in the room, which was, once more, the Mildmay Club, Stoke Newington.
"I wrote all 3 hrs of it in eight months except a joke about pants by Bridget Christie, 4 names of beers based on progressive rock bands which were written by Paul Allen of The Heads and Carlton B Morgan, and a line about a servant by Richard Webb."
The series is produced by Webb and directed by Tim Kirkby.
A fourth series of the stand-up comedy series was commissioned at the same time as the third, and is understood to be planned for a broadcast during 2016.
Here is a clip from Series 2: