Stewart Lee

Stewart Lee interview

He divides audiences like no other comedian, his fans hanging on every word of his rambling monologues, his critics raging at the lack of laughs. Stewart Lee explains his pleasure at being hated - and why he doesn't do 'jokes'.

Stewart Lee is wrong about the internet killing comedy

By railing against the tyranny of tweets the comedian has dismissed an alternative universe of wonderfully weird humour.

The last of Stewart Lee's virtuoso stand-up performances - except for the second time this series, he's actually sitting down. Tonight the sardonic comic tells a tall tale about meeting a young David Cameron at Oxford in the mid-Eighties. Lee sums up the coalition government thus: "Despite being bred for power, Cameron was only able to get it by hooking up with Nick Clegg. It's like a foxhound that's only able to catch foxes with the assistance of a chihuahua." Recommission please, BBC.

Stewart Lee could have spun the globe wherever he fancied and found plenty of material for Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (BBC2). This week the theme of what is consistently the funniest show on British TV was national identity, easy pickings for a comedian with Lee's engaging line in world-weary hacked-offness.

On the face of it, Lee took on some easy targets, with Scots and Australians taking the bulk of his ire. William Wallace's sexuality, Scotch eggs - you'll never eat one again - and the spectrum of Australian cultural life ('smoothie... or heroin?') made for an engaging and unapologetic rant.
But shouldn't a cutting-edge comedian be taking a pop at rather more contentious choices and shoving his head above the multicultural parapet?
The answer came in one of Lee's growled asides; not really punchlines to jokes, more a comedy train crashing into the buffers. 'You get the shows you deserve,' he scowled and suddenly the joke was on everyone, me included, who'd been howling along at how daft everyone else is except us.

We travel and we eat fusion cuisine but really we know we're stuck in a parochial past. No one gets up our noses more than those we think we've got most in common with.

Lee was on fire when it came to emigrants Down Under, ripping the surfboard out of every cliché. 'Prawns! Prawns! Prawns! Quality of life! Prawns!' turned into a near-hysteric mantra. Mmm... you probably had to be there. Why weren't you?

In praise of... Stewart Lee

His performances unfurl like a stroll on a summer's day: scenery and good companionship take precedence over destination.

In this penultimate slice of masterful stand-up comedy, Stewart Lee looks at the notion of national identity. Skewered during his erudite, spiralling rant are figures as diverse as Winston Churchill, Michael McIntyre and pretty much the entire population of Australia. There's also a cameo appearance from the cult graphic novelist Alan Moore (Watchmen).

An interview with Tony Law

Tony Law, described as "the sherpa of stand-up", who "leads an expedition to undiscovered alpin uplands of laughter", by Stewart Lee, is definitely a comedians comedian (having won the prestigious Comics' Choice "Piece-of-Wood" Award at the 2005 Melbourne Comedy Festival).

This isn't a mistake, this is my act!" Stewart Lee's self-deprecation is second nature and he remains as dry as the Atacama desert. Here, he happily tests the limits of the shambolic while pulling the rug from underneath what is now accepted as comedy. He sets out to do a musical comedy routine so as to win over the audience but can't resist a few nice barbs about Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow. The risk is that he deconstructs comedy to the point of nihility - the interview scenes with Armando Iannucci are particularly grating and unnecessary - but Lee is such a pro he always let's the joke, in some form, get through.

Paul Sinha: Inside Stewart Lee's vehicle

I was utterly delighted to be asked to do the show being a massive fan not just of Stewart Lee, but also of the first series.

This week saw the return of Stewart Lee's less-than-conventional stand-up show on BBC Two.

If you want to know who unconventional it is, let me put it this way - the show was meant to be about charity, but instead it consisted of Lee talking about crisps (he repeated the word "crisps" over 100 times during the show), and the programme had only four jokes which Lee deliberately deconstructed, giving advanced warning of when they were due to appear and explaining the jokes in detail.

This show is therefore not going to please everybody. Having said that I fail to understand why the BBC decided to broadcast the show at 23.20, where it would fail to get a larger audience. At least there is the iPlayer.

There were some changes to the format. Most of the sketches had gone. There was only one sketch at the end of the episode featuring Scottish comedian Arnold Brown. However, the original red button feature of the programme, in which Lee was "interviewed" by Armando Iannucci, now appears in the main show, breaking up the stand-up routines.

I am not sure whether this new format works. Maybe it is best to let it settle down for a little while, but I quite liked the original sketches, primarily because they featured comedians not usually seen on TV such as Simon Munnery and at one point Jerry Sadowitz as Jimmy Savile.

It is however a funny, interesting and above-all clever show. Lee makes you laugh and also think about the way comedy is presented. Just a shame it is on so late.