Stewart Lee appreciation thread

I've seen all of the standup specials (I think) & his TV show – 'Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle' is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, and the negative review he wrote of it is icing on the cake.

He is also not unattractive given his age + "crumpled Morrissey" look.

That review is by him according to Wikipedia.

My favorite bit of his:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo

the sketch about waterstone's, mfi, and... zavvi closing was pretty much the funniest thing i heard last year.

not waterstone's. woolworths.

i like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1H913UqQ6w

I met him once at a Cecil Taylor concert in London. He seemed very nice, and has excellent taste in music. Is he actually that funny though? Everything I've seen of his stand-up makes me react with thoughtful agreement rather than actually laughing, that's based on a handful of youtube vids though so maybe not representative.

I like the plan he proposed in a recent interview (Guardian, I think) to do a word for word 'cover' of Michael McIntyre's most recent DVD, drained of all emotion.

xpost - I laugh at him often, but he straddles a line between stand-up and some kind of bizarre performance art. Always riveting, whatever.

oh man i would love to see that

did lol at him so subtlely calling 9/11 the ninth of november

The whole thing where he talks about 'the ninth of November' and farting in the bar in Spain, and then trying to fart in a minaret to reproduce the same uniting effect...that cracked me up hard.

I always think he's got incredibly lazy and half-arsed and started picking at really obvious targets but then he'll do one hilarious routine and I'll forgive him. I'm glad he's around even when he isn't particularly making me laugh.

Also, negatively reviewing your own show under a psuedonym = classic.

Haha I missed this - link plz?

Stewart Lee appreciation thread

"Who does he think he is, George Bernard Shaw?"

I like the plan he proposed in a recent interview (Guardian, I think) to do a word for word 'cover' of Michael McIntyre's most recent DVD, drained of all emotion.

― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Would lay actual cash money on him having this in mind when he came up with that idea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcKfsfEurY8

xp lol slow reader here

Apparently ill at ease with both speech and movement, Lee’s presence on screen creates a kind of negative energy, a black hole of vacancy, pregnant with lack of meaning. The show seems to have been created to punish the viewer for some imagined crime. Unfortunately for fat Lee, the test audience with whom I endured a screening last week shared my doubts."

I always think he's got incredibly lazy and half-arsed and started picking at really obvious targets but then he'll do one hilarious routine and I'll forgive him. I'm glad he's around even when he isn't particularly making me laugh.

― Space Battle Rothko (Matt DC), Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^

this is him at his worst, i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARa2eQ4Rqk0

but yeah, the zavvi thing was incredible

zavvi bit here at 2:20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzE9Ji_WFaM

i've seen two lee and herring reunions where they do "heroin is a drug too," etc and it gets funnier the more they repeat it... but i can't remember at this point what show the jokes were on orginally.

the Joe Pasquale bit is my fave bit of uk stand up this decade by some distance.

I think Stewart Graham Lee was the first stand-up I saw who I just loved, and have continued to love whatever he does (even after the anus of Christ thing which I thought was pretty crap - at least it brought the Joe Pasquale bit into the world).

'Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle' is one of the funniest things I've ever seen

^This statement is funnier than the whole of Comedy Vehicle. I saw his "If You Want a Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One" show in Worcester a few weeks ago. He had everyone smirking - me included. I don't think this guy has ever really made me laugh tho tbh.

Stupidly excited abt this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pnvbj

John Thomson has given himself quite a big subject there.

that political correctness bit is awesome and otm

I saw Stewart Lee wheeling a pushchair down Stoke Newington Church Street the other day, before going into an Xmas arts and crafts fair.

i've seen two lee and herring reunions where they do "heroin is a drug too," etc and it gets funnier the more they repeat it... but i can't remember at this point what show the jokes were on orginally.

They were probably doing that routine even before the Radio 1 show they did.

heroin is a drug too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bX7eT3Yfuw

what ever happened to herring?

He still does stand-up shows- there was some mild controversy over his "Hitler Moustache" routine recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YejwHrceF4

I really hope they're not being serious with that photo above.

I know this is the Stewart Lee Appreciation Thread, and I am firmly on the side of love (the Pasquale stuff and "Del Day" from Comedy Vehicle being two comedy highpoints for me this year), but this notorious heckler slam from Richard Herring surely deserves also a mention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtjx-yplqTw

Is there a youtube clip for the pasquale stuff?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YE9Kthyaco

Lovely to hear a reference to Michael Redmond.

the guy dressed up as susan boyle on last week's harry hill looked just like stewart lee, facially

Anyone know more about the Judas thing? Three performances of the same show in one package (where he plays Judas) - is there a point in having three? Are they different enough to justify ordering this? I have all the dvds but those are all years apart and completely different shows.

Amusing brief riff on Stuart Maconie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5nQzWWRnWY

this was on tonight, caught last hour.

Does Stuart Maconie even do clip shows these days?

Perhaps we could get Maconie on to reminisce about when Stuart Maconie used to do clip shows.

the Joe Pasquale bit is my fave bit of uk stand up this decade by some distance.

totally

a hoy hoy, the Pasquale thing basically requires you to watch the entire "90s Comedian" gig for it to make sense, but it's worth it

Anyone read his novel, "The Perfect Fool"? Just finished it, was a bit... weird. Apart from a couple of lines I wouldn't have guessed he wrote it.

Current favourite Stewart Lee moment: describing Adrian Chiles as "a talking Toby jug filled to the brim with hot piss".

xp Is that the book with the Holy Grail and desert-dwelling prog rocker? I found it quite formulaic actually. I mean, it's fine as a piece of easy-reading pulp, but it hardly bought the lols at all. Dude can write tho, not a bad first book at all.

so inconsequential I'd forgotten buying and reading it until your summary. it's an afternoon at the beach read really, not a dazzling entree into a new medium like, say, erm... The Gun Seller. Or The Grey Area. ahem.

Caught his "If you prefer a milder comedian, please ask for one" show in Stafford last night and it was very good indeed - highly recommended if anyone's got a chance to see it. Not much point going into details, but he has an extended joke about Magner's Pear Cider that was far funnier than it had any right to be.

Unexpected joy also that the (unbilled) support was Simon Munnery, who was ace.

I'm seeing it on the 25th, iirc. :DDDDDDDDDDDD

SO EXCITED

Comedy Vehicle has gotten a second series according to Iannucci's twitter.

Woooooooooo.

Tonight was fucking hilarious. Possibly the best live stand-up I've ever seen. He had a fuck load of technical problems and spent about 20 minutes improvising about it... aaas well as the rest of the show.

jealousy that we don't get him over here- was in cambridge last year and he was running a show, but weren't able to stick around.

Good to know he's maintaining the standards elsewhere - I've not seen the show before so have no idea how much is off-the-cuff, but he certainly gave the good burghers of Stafford a roasting a couple of weeks ago.

a hoy hoy, as someone who's seen it, did you find that there's a stage in the set where he's deep into the Magner's routine (roundabout his grandad's memories of the bombing of Dresden), and the anticipation of the "I'll give it to you straight" line produces a kind of incessant delight? I could barely catch breath I was laughing so hard.

Oh yeah I assume he gets a lukewarm reaction from Top Gear fans all over the shop.

Yeah, "I'll give it to you straight" was just so perfect. Not just because of the routine though! Because of all technical problems and lots of things going wrong (like some jokes didn't get a big laugh from an audience that obviously didn't know his schtick- i would be weeing myself while everyone else would be going 'oh is he angry about that?'), not long before the Magner's routine he sat down on the edge of the stage and gave it to us straight what was going to happen and had like a five minute talk with the audience about how he writes his routines and how they are performed. (if he does this everywhere then it really is the best stand-up routine ever.)

No, when he played Oxford he didn't do any of that around the Magners routine. He did a bit of a section about his memories of Cowley Road tho (he went to uni in Oxford so he's got a perspective on how it changed). But yeh, enormous lols at Magners routine, and so much to unpack as well.

jealousy that we don't get him over here-

He played the Galway Comedy Festival and did a night in Vicar St. last October. They were massively well received, so I'm sure he'll be around again on the next tour.

Unexpected joy also that the (unbilled) support was Simon Munnery, who was ace.

― Bill A, Saturday, 13 February 2010 12:31 (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Simon munnery deserves to be way more well known and successful than he is.

Was he the 'country singer' or did I get someone totally different?

He was alan parker urban warroir but what I remeber him best for was the stage version of the "League against tedium" (not the TV show, which wasn't that good).

http://www.wilsondixon.com/ was the guy i saw. he was a kinda funny, 7/10 type.

>he sat down on the edge of the stage and gave it to us straight what was going to happen and had like a five minute talk with the audience about how he writes his routines and how they are performed.

He did something similar in Stafford near the start, which evolved into a routine about which sections of the audience were laughing at particular jokes. Came back to this later on during a pretend phone call and brought big lols with it. The way he steps in and out of his downbeat "persona" is so effortless and funny too.

And yeah, Ed, it's a real shame that Munnery's profile has dipped - I enjoyed his Attention Scum! show from a few years back and wondered where he'd got to. He referred to having been very ill at one point, and also showed some nerve damage to his hand so I guess he might be working a bit more slowly these days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/06/patrick-marber-craig-raine-hero

At the Greenwich gig Munnery absolutely fucking eviscerated two latecomers, just like staring at them saying "ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO APOLOGISE? HAVE YOU GOT AN EXCUSE? DON'T EVER BREED"

His book is funny. He said it was all the jokes he has written in 20 years, and you can read it in ten minutes; basically accurate

Saw the show in Edmonton last night, thought it was fabulous. I keep giggling over the pronunciations of Caffe Nero, eg "Caffe Nehru".

Lee is writing a book about his last three standup shows; it is named after a Mission of Burma song!

Do you mean last three performances or last 3 routines?

the 2004-2008 sets

it's called Trem Two

It's not new, but a friend recommended this clip from his Identity show, and I recommend it in because it's easily one of the funniest things I've seen him do (in two parts, 2nd links from the 1st):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-S8n8-9RU

A+

Watching all his DVDs in a row because I just got the Milder one from 4m4zon yesterday, and I'm again fascinated by the incredibly annoyed woman sitting to the right of the stage with her arms crossed during the "90s comedian" show - what the hell? Just go away then, what's the point of staying?

Some people pay good money to get annoyed by comedians.

yeah, a lot of them on ILX

<3 Stu, he gets better all the time. This If you want a milder comic show is fantastic. Otters, that raises the bar, doesn't it?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stewart-Lee-Stand-Comedian-DVD/dp/B000AOEX40/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1291824829&sr=8-4 2.99 new!

which one was filmed in glasgow? Picked that up for a couple of quid on amazon last week. '41st best standup' is really great too

Only 90s comedian wasn't filmed in glasgow, the three others were.

Stand up comedian and 41st best at The Stand, If you want a milder at the Citizens Theatre.

Wow. Didn't expect that end to the show - even though the clue was on stage all the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnrHaMa4xnE&feature=related

ha, didn't realise that the guy who did the original "get out of my garden" joke was this guy, who played Father Stone from Father Ted.

Ha indeed.

Comedy Vehicle restarts on wednesday (BBC2 2011-05-04 23:20)

is that the latest the bbc have ever scheduled a comedy series?

The last series of Jack Dee's Lead Balloon often premiered on BBC2 after midnight on a Sunday.

Wow. How did that go down?

I don't think anybody else apart from me even noticed its existence.

duh

It's early, right.

:)

they were putting Arrested Development on around midnight on Sundays in the end too iirc (+ Family Guy, but i wouldn't expect it so much with their own shows)

Are these new or repeats?

NEW

Think these are new, tried to get tickets for the filming last year.

His book is good, I'm just ploughing through the appendices at the end where he argues for the fundamental worthlessness of musical theatre and shit

Helpfully reminded me to splurge on some Munnery stuff as well

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010m9t0

!!!

Has Marcello become a commissioner at R4?

What did anyone think of last night's show?

I laughed.

i thought complaining about BritPop jokes and then doing a long bit about Godzilla was a bit pot / kettle.

on one insane bender, in one day he ate 4 bags of crisps

love it

Really liked it. The main crisps routine was from his current live show, seems like there will be less emphasis on sketches in the series this time (Mothra attack on his grandad sequence notwithstanding). No idea if it's on iplayer, but the Stewart Lee Presents short on the red-button afterwards with Kevin Eldon was great too.

I was with those giving a pre-emptive laugh at Worcester.

i thought the mothra-attack sketch was way too laboured and wacky and ruined the whole lives-in-a-nest-woven-from-etc image by its literalism but i did like that when stew-as-godzilla appeared the japanese caption said 'eric morecambe'

lol never got that

Ha, thanks for that Morecambe insight.

Think his 'audience not getting the joke' exciting risk of failure thing is getting a bit artificial and 'well grandad you fed them those berries' a weaker payoff when it's crisps, but still laughed. Godzilla thing seemed like an excuse to make his kid laugh I'unno.

His mailing list just sent out a colossal list of message board/Twitter/YouTube comments slagging him, funny to see him stoke that even more with the tv audience contempt; wonder if he has something in mind with that

Never been an SL stan, but last night's episode was actually laugh-out-loud funny.

I did wonder if there was a longer game being played alongside the instantaneous funniness.

The set this is from went on to talk about charity and Russell Howard and David Cameron and that

oh shit i missed this

remember when people used to watch tv

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0110grc/hd/Stewart_Lees_Comedy_Vehicle_Series_2_Charity/

this was great

Kevin Eldon bit is on iplayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p00gr86z/stewart_lees_comedy_vehicle_stewart_lee_presents_kevin_eldon/

:D

(less into his French busker, but the skipping CD song and George Martin as Hitler were A+. Nice to see Stew properly pissing himself when Eldon is in flow as well.)

he is very funny! lotta padding. it felt kind of like 15 minutes of material stretched out. my favorite part was his granddad picking up the phone as his house is being destroyed and saying "yes, it's dreadful"

more pacing than padding imo.

At the Greenwich gig Munnery absolutely fucking eviscerated two latecomers, just like staring at them saying "ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO APOLOGISE? HAVE YOU GOT AN EXCUSE? DON'T EVER BREED"

ha, that was me. late train, the usher was intent on ushering us in, gf gets all "for fucks sake let's just sit down" and yeh ppl arriving late pisses me off too so fair fair. i did want to smash his guitar over his head while he was doing some kind of lol doesn't bob dylan sing all funny type thing.

be fair now, he really didn't need to do the crispin glover/quentin crisp/LA Crips jokes

Eh? That's not padding, that's accumulation/reinforcement! A necessary plateau. All good, all funny.

¯\(°_°)/¯

W

but i liked the short list of crispin glover films joke. and the stephen fry joke. both of which were part of that segment.

(and the pauses in those recurring short list jokes are good examples of pacing over padding)

the pause REALLY worked the first time but for some reason it didn't get funnier each time.. (for me)

the stephen fry joke was pretty good it's true.. sorry to be a negative nancy!

Yeah, repetition can go either way, it can dilute or enhance, but I think he pitched it just right. (Listen to us, like a couple of old hacks standing at the back - "yeah, funny line... hmmm, callback, nice..."). I laffed and laffed.

agree that that pause only really funny the first time found the "I only have four jokes" "there are no more jokes" bit a bit laboured even for his style but he is funny and it was really good

agreed!

i forgot this was the appreciation thread! i should have revived the "tediously nitpicking stewart lee" thread

The short list of Crispin Glover films didn't really work for me, mainly because I was just thinking "he was in the remake of the Wizard of Gore. I should totally see that".

same here, but with River's Edge

that's accumulation/reinforcement! A necessary plateau. All good, all funny.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 6 May 2011 10:54 (3 hours ago)

^^^^^^

thought this was great

that was much better than week 01 imo (though id seen the week one material already)

script editor chris morris

i thought the opposite. this one was pretty boring for basically the reasons he gave (ah do you see).

yeah this is basically the middle of 'if you prefer a milder comedian ask for one'

^^^

Well I laughed. I remember seeing a couple of episodes of his last series and thinking, wtf this is guy just isn't funny, so progress is being made. Well done for having a pop at Frankie Boyle.

lolled at whose name makes their act sound /better/ than it is

really didn't enjoy this, it felt super lazy - the conversation with country-dwelling friend kept slipping into Lee-and-Herring-ism, and when he did the self-referential phone thing followed by the talking-to-iannucci-about-the-self-referential-phone-thing i felt like i was slipping into a coma.

the conversation with country-dwelling friend kept slipping into Lee-and-Herring-ism

this is good, not bad like you thought

soz but i would rather see lee-and-herring-ism with richard herring in it and not just stewart lee doing a richard herring impression while talking to himself

i find that "if i point out it's bad before you/more articulately than you, then that is a good joke itself" meta thing not so much self-indulgent or lazy or whatever, but just rubbish comedy. it's still bad.

first ep slightly better, tho i'd seen some of this one already on one of his rapidshare avis

i guess "come and stay, we have a horse" was also supposed to be a cumulative effect plateau thing?

Oh come on, this was still funny. Paddy McGuinness and his "joke". The horse committing suicide. She grew up a racist. etc.

they don't have racists in stoke newington

Eurgh. Of course racists are everywhere but its still a good joke.

not rly

a racist *who could spell* -- well i lolled

unabstracted liberal selfcongratulation is autopilot stuff for him

no, you don't get the joke

you're a boring cocksucker

*cries tears*

no, you don't get the joke

nakhchivan = Iannucci
history mayne = Lee

The sketch at the end was the best bit.

Did like the horse committing suicide because Paddy McGuinness was coming to town. But then I loathe Paddy McGuinness passionately, so suspect even the cheapest of points would have hit.

i find that "if i point out it's bad before you/more articulately than you, then that is a good joke itself" meta thing not so much self-indulgent or lazy or whatever, but just rubbish comedy. it's still bad.

what?

any other comedians doing hyper self-aware meta bullshit like this?

sometimes he reminds me of some of the weird old poet / comedians that turn up to improv nights. except lee knows his audience and his "enemies" - whereas a lot of those guys are just "lol kids today"

turned this off halfway, was plain bad

first ep i liked but it did peter out dispiritingly even before the godzilla bit

what stand up do you like RTC?

Does he have to like any?

umm yeah i dunno tbh

if you're asking with a view to interrogating my understanding of the particular rules and laws of the stand up format compared to a sitcom say then yeah, i am not a stand up connoisseur or anything and in fact the idea of owning a dvd let alone attending a gig does make me feel a bit ill tbh

i don't believe such qualitative distinctions exist however

if it's just a general question about who and what i do find funny then i will have to hold my hands up and excuse myself cos i've never really thought about it or much bothered to recall who's given me a chuckle - feel free to throw some names at me if you're interested to triangulate though

what?

― Crackle Box, Thursday, May 12, 2011 3:04 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"what? i can't parse that" or "what nonsense"?

why do i always break my sworn no talking about comedy on ilx vow, seriously

oh yeah wait that michael mcintyre, he's good

lol

real talk though i probably would ride for any mike mac performance over this last stu one, it's basically all the same material except the little man wouldnt wipe his arse with most of it

"rats? in hackney? kids yeah, on these buses they have these days, you know the ones, they've all got knives yeah [insert guardianista-friendly ref to politican]"

do me a lemon

i suppose the all knowing all seeing stu deliberately made those unfunny gags to expose our shitty desires for laffs though

boy is my face red

Whoa, a clever guy than Stewart Lee!

*adores*

Richard Herring is a *much* better stand-up, imo.

just watched the second one, enjoyed it. you're all nuts.

if i was adrian or russell i'd be tempted to turn up at one of s lee's shows, to see what happens.

and again with mocking r howard and his jokes about ninjas and then referencing Monkey. it's the same thing, almost exactly in this case.

Didn't laugh too much this week. If at all.

fell asleep. did it get funny?

i thought it was hilarious f the hataz

^ yes, this

Watching the third one on iplayer right now. It's funny but I'm distracted trying to figure out if that's Sean Lock in the audience.

It isn't.

lol'd at this one tbh

if he really dislikes Chiles and Howard

then I think this is good judgement

for a TV person

If You Prefer a Milder Comedian... is currently doing the rounds on 'comedy central extra' for you sky goons :D

just discovered this guy. watched 3 of his dvds last night. classic stuff.

haven't seen any of 'comedy vehicle' yet tho. a lot of the stand up isn't laugh out loud funny but i'm really ill and just kind of enjoyed lying on the sofa all evening watching this guy talk at length about semi-boring semi-funny things. there was this bit about how robbie williams walked out of one of his gigs saying "he has a voice for relaxation or meditation groups or something". totally true imo but not necessarily a bad thing

Just finished his book, "How I escaped my certain fate" or something. It's mainly a couple of transcripts of his shows, but with a lot of (I thought) interesting notes, plus a few autobiog chapters giving a lot of context, and various other writings. Anyway, it gives me a greater appreciation, I guess, for what he does. But I'm a lifelong fan, so ymmv. Actually, I still don't really like the anus-of-Jesus act too much.

ok that was AMAZING

bugger, forgot about it again

He really tested the audience that time... 'You may have noticed when I do observational comedy I.....trail..off..'

I don't mind indulging his rambling anti-comedy bits when they're troughs built into a full set, but when it's half an hour of TV that's just that it can feel a bit embarrassing?

Looks like The Man wouldn't let him straight cuss McIntyre by name

I do like the wry pursed sorta face he pulls when he's amused by what he's saying

The lip quiver?

That was better than the others I've watched. It felt almost transcendent at times.

He really let the crowd get to him though! I know that doing "jokes" isn't really his thing right now but good Lord there was a golden opportunity to do a joke about receipts when those people walked out. It must have occurred to him.

One day he will just do a set of inaudible mumbles. At the O2.

were they walking out or were they just going to the bathroom?

I thought the same thing! Like settle down fella, they need a fuckin pee.

I do like the wry pursed sorta face he pulls when he's amused by what he's saying

the Quietus just put up a pretty neat thing where he talks about his favourite 13 albums and the writer specifically mentions how his laugh is, like, booming and at odds w/ how he comes off on TV - I think he actually has to suppress it

The IRA/Al Qaeda stuff was brilliant on many levels.

He really let the crowd get to him though! I know that doing "jokes" isn't really his thing right now but good Lord there was a golden opportunity to do a joke about receipts when those people walked out. It must have occurred to him.

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Thursday, May 26, 2011 10:19 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

he did, didn't he? or at least I'm sure there was an ironic smirk.

Yeah I was talking about actually making the joke.

The moment you're remembering - I think he almost made the joke, by accident - the joke that would have saved everything, tied it all together, but it's like he just refused to make it.

The bits with Iannucci are excellent btw

Worth posting here, apologies if its been referred to elsewhere- a really interesting list, and some good musings too.

http://thequietus.com/articles/06324-stewart-lee-interview-favourite-albums

He mentions his favourite albums in the book (£3 in Fopp, b&g, cheap reading for being in Rome with...)

He's not a bad singer!

btw, obvious solution to a toaster that only gives you warm bread or carbon is to use the warm bread setting twice.

T/s: Iannucci's cheerful, ultracritical professor persona vs his harassed middle aged sadcase persona

He seems like a cheerful chap irl, bit annoyingly so

Missed quite a chunk of last night's due to wailing, poxy children but I will iPlayer it.

Quietus feature very good (if you can look past the bad transcription errors); not many women though. Kay Carroll and Lisa Germano in fairly minor roles. Just kinda jumped out at me, that - the procession of men.

Reckon if I had to pick 13 favourite albums there wouldn't be many women in there either. Not exactly unusual I'd say.

he's kind of unapologetically rockist for one thing, but I smiled at the Nic Jones inclusion

Possibly the case that anyone who's favourite record is by The Fall is doomed to rockism?

Could be worse, he could be a jazz fan

Just watched Hitler Moustache.

Was kinda funny but it doesn't really have any belly laughs. Herring is kinda manic, like he's scared he's going to forget his routine so he rushes through it. Also was his suit a Chaplin thing or could he just not find one that fit?

this was a strange episode, the lull coming midway and then some really rather admirable content

he must be the most genial member of the stravinsky, lenny bruce, iggy pop, gg allin canon of epater les paying customers

balotelli

alan moore supposedly guest appearance on tonights ep

missed last week's. the charity one was not so good.

Have you ever considered not watching this show,as you seem to not enjoy it?

if you're going to jaymc me, get it right. i defended the countryside ep against hoards of haters.

well, hordes anyway

Re: Michael's no chicks comments above, Alix C and I once sat next to Stewie at a Neko Case concert.

Watched a couple of episodes of this show and find it determinedly, perversely unfunny.

Sorry,hm.my .xls is clearly inaccurate.

And Trigger pulled a face.

and find it determinedly, perversely unfunny.

Good thing or not? I quite like that element of perversity, but yep, not funny. So you're watching a man talking, and that's something I think he does quite well, but I'm not sure if anyone can do it well enough for me to really love it. I don't know, maybe Quintilian had it nailed, but short of that, it's not going to totally work I think.

the stuff w alan moore last night was abysmal, and really missed a trick, cos as 'himself' moore can actually be really really funny

yes, was delighted that moore got prime-time(!) tv coverage, was disapointed at the content, that he wasn't himself.

(there's a radio 4 show where one of them interviewed the other. am glad that that relationship has continued)

had heard, but don't know where, the scottish bits before. the nook aside was great.

the scottish stuff was on one of his dvds iirc? feel like i have seen it round someone's house.

apart from the wacky sketch bullshit i thought this ep was pretty good - the meta stuff was charming rather than grinding, especially when he genuinely smiled at the end of one bit.

A few good moments but the weakest so far. The first series now seems like Russ Abbott's Madhouse compared to this. Wilfully awkward. Perhaps Stevie T saw the wrong episodes because it has generally been great, I think. Just...awkward.

In show #6 I think he may just look at the floor and smirk for 30min. AND I WILL LIKE IT.

I was a bit disappointed with this ep, too much recycled material. Or maybe it's always like that but I happened to have seen these particular routines before, I don't know.

Re the previous episode, was the 'terrorism ain't like what it used to be' act from his old material, i seem to recall it somehow.

watched an episode of this on catchup. Very strange indeed. At one point I forgot he was even there and all I was doing was vicariously sitting in a room full of people politely sipping drinks.

nah last night's episode was mostly great

I think this is almost exclusively great despite having seen the pre-exploded "developing" version of it late last year and so have seen most of it already except for armando and the vignettes obviously. the only thing I don't like is when he pretends to be awkward or labours the "I have no jokes" bit.

the one I saw was when he was sitting with his guitar.

the scottish material is great but he seemed kind of bored by it himself. done much better here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-S8n8-9RU

it's better with a scottish audience, definitely. but i liked the meta-addition of "nook hour", and the emigrant rant at the end was great.

He's done the "the IRA were gentlemen terrorists" gag before but it wasn't as fully developed with all that "I'm sorry but I just don't like Al-Qaeda" stuff

don't see how it could work without it

hmm yeah i was a little disappointed at the repeat of the scottish skit, but probly just me in that i've watched that glasgow tour stand up over and over again (much better in front of the scots audience)

he seems kind of jaded by the whole thing this series

Favourite episode so far, this one. The emigrants/giant prawns escalating rant had me in stitches.

(dave is showing series 1 btw)

rah

awes series

Last week's grew in the memory; me and the missus have been talking about it all week. And then tonight's was kinda magical, I think.

ya i think so

i really like stewart lee in a naive sort of culture hero way that i ordinarily abjure

he is so amiable

they need to get him reading childrens books if he doesn't do that already, no more night terrors for the anguished coaliiton kiddies

wow at that episode

Think this was the first one in this series where I hadn't heard a large chunk of it already; liked it all the more for that.

I've decided that this and Louie are strange US/UK counterparts.

Given how much Louis CK admits to owing to Ricky Gervais, and how much Ricky Gervais admits to owing to Stewart Lee, you're probably right.

I don't see either of those connections myself

ricky gervais admits to owing to stewart lee? um wahhhht?

aside from the jaded middle aged man thing what connects louie and lee?

Ricky Gervais has said on several occasions in interviews that Stewart Lee's standup comedy was a big influence on him and his standup style. I have heard him say this, and so has Stewart Lee because he talks about it in his book.

So, given that Louis CK says that Ricky Gervais's television success was an influence on Louis, and Ricky Gervais says his standup style was influenced by Stewart Lee, that is a connection. No?

well, gervais has only been doing standup for what, a year or two? so any influencing of louis c.k. would have been before that.

and frankly i don't see much resemblance between louie and gervais' shows. possibly louis meant that gervais' tv success was an inspiration in terms of, say, proving that an unconventional format could work.

well, more like ten years than one or two.

but yeah, i think the connection is more: these guys find each other funny, rather than these guys are influenced by each other.

i didn't find the last episode very funny

hit too close to home

on Stewart Lee's WTF episode he said Gervais saying Lee influenced him got him back into stand up.

caek really? on "talking funny" gervais painted himself as a standup neophyte who wanted to "earn his spurs"

He was at edinburgh 2001 iirc doing stand up.

he doesn't do a lot of standup but he's been doing it for a ten years or so according to wikipedia

however long he's been doing it he shouldn't do it any more, he's made enough money now.

slightly irrational hatred of gervais due to a large contingent of my 14 year old classmates adopting his mannerisms and repeating his jokes ad infinitum

is stewart lee currently in the same place as brooker was 5 years ago? will he be co-presenting itv shows with fearne cotton in five years' time?

no

just checking thx

np. please see everything he's ever written or said for further details.

we should do a poll of ppl who never sold out, shouldn't take long with only four or five options

Michael Foot?

Bill Hicks?

Scholes!!

that last episode of 'comedy vehicle' is certainly something

although not really 'comedy'

I didn't really get much more out of it than I do from just looking at the Bullingdon Club photo, and I thought I liked Stewart Lee. Bit puzzled as to what's gone wrong.

I loved it, and I didn't think I did. The episode before last grew on me, despite a fatuous comment upthread, and I thoroughly enjoyed the final episode. I generally loathe stand-up, but the air of melancholy and disappointment was thoroughly enjoyable, even if I didn't actually laugh that much. Loved his continual attacks on observational comedy and also the bristling hatred that was apparent in all of it.

I did think "ooh, pheasant" was a bit beneath him.
The bits with Armando Ianucci are what really makes this show, love them.

His <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/10/stewart-lee-damon-albarn-occult";>column on "occult" Damon Albarn is just brilliant</a>:

Both of us have survived by exploiting the goodwill of one-time teenage fans who have grown up to be journalists and regional culture tsars, and who can now give us glowing reviews and valuable commissions in order to post-rationalise their adolescent crushes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/10/stewart-lee-damon-albarn-occult , rather,

yeah amazing. he should sell out more. fuck this 'i only do stand-up' noise.

During the early 90s, satirist-thinkers David Baddiel and James 'Loaded' Brown were among a group of dedicated activists working hard to repopularise the forgotten activity of men masturbating their penises over pictures of naked women.

"It is not for me to draw parallels between my own life and that of Christ," runs the opening line of Irish writer Fiachra MacFiach's new autobiography, The Autobiography of Ireland's Greatest Living Genius.

i don't understand that. is that him complaining about a stolen joke?

yeah i think he might be. it is an actual book. i didn't get the reference to enochian thingummy.

'complaining about a stolen joke' in a way that only 1% of the readers will understand

*high five* for all the people who wondered if they understood that complaint

i'm not a massive fan of his writing tbh.

it's always twice as long as it needs to be. the forensic standup thing doesn't really translate. and part of the length is due to cultural references that seem either meant to flatter the egos of people who get them, or like lazy shorthand, kind of like when people say "this is problematic" without saying what they mean.

quite like having my ego flattered tbh

ha, i hate myself so usually think anyone who wants to flatter my ego is an idiot/fraud

that article has moments though!

It succeeds, in 2011, in making me angry again about the mid-90s, which is no mean feat.

found that sort of unreadable. i don't really like that high farce charlie brooker style tho.

unreadable yes, and revoltingly smug. plus

"The Echobellies are to reform, not as a band, but as a druidical sex cult, and Louise Weeners of the Sleeper is planning a lighthearted chick-lit novel about Ithell Colquhoun and her magic goose. In a reversal of these new norms, Northamptonshire magician Alan Moore is to perform a one-man dance piece about the rise and fall of Menswe@r."

is just the lamest shit

unreadable? are you all five years old?

think you have to be older than 5 to get butthurt about somebody taking the piss out of Louise Weeners

sorry noodles

ha! xp

I thought this article quite good, on the whole, much better than the usual column you get in this kind of slot.

If it is true about Albarn then he sounds idiotic.

The one thing I didn't like in the article was the putdown of David Bowie. For one thing, Bowie is a greater figure than Lee can ever hope to be. For another, mocking a 64-year-old for looking old is crass, cruel and kind of stupidly tautological.

Well Lee rather likes Maek E Smith, but cals him a shuffling undead corpse. Another hero, Alan Moore, is described as 'Northamptonshire magician'.Wouldn't surprise me if SL loved DB. Also, in thecontext of his fanbase,having a ludicrous and out of date dig at DB is likely to be more productively provocative than one for Russel Howard/ Adrian Chiles/Harry Potter.

Albarn is idiotic, but so were DB and MES wgen they were producing their best work (and DB prob tried toi contact John Dee a couple of times himself) and maybe that's the point.

I don't think Alan Moore would see 'Northamptonshire magician' as much of an insult, more like an accurate description of who he is.

No, I don't think he would see it as an insult at all, because he's got a sense of humour, but in the context of the article it's wry and slightly derisive.

I think it is generally OK for comedians to gently poke fun at famous people's career paths/appearances, even if (especially?!) the person in question is a more popular or successful figure than them

thinking about Bowie / Albarn comparison, their both saying stupid things -- the curious difference is Bowie did it when he was young and hurtling on intoxicated flush of success, c. early to mid 70s: so the equivalent would really be Albarn doing it in the 1990s. Unlike Bowie, he would seem to have become more daft in later life.

I think Bowie's interest in Gnosis or whatever had at least a degree of contextual sense in the 70s and an obvious relationship to his work then. Also did he mouth off about it much outside of his lyrics, or even align himself explicitly with it? Lee is pretty otm on Bowie as a persona I think, but would be more interestingly applied to the commonly valued stuff he did in the 70s rather than the easy lols that came after. Lee's snipes at "failing genres" are typical of his unironic (i think) adherence to his notion of cool music - kind of boring classical alt canon that he's always repped for. Albarn always feels much more like "hi i've read a book and now this is what i'm about until next week" but this is maybe cos he's too much the gobshite to be cool and mysterious a la 70s Dave and also cos he moves in horrible Sunday supplement journoworld instead of reprehensible but somehow more fun/honest 70s musicpressland

it's like for all Lee hates satyierrre he is obv deeply engaged in it as a career and like all functional satyierrrists he has a core of banal small c conservative beliefs that give him the platform to satyierrrize from. but this article was sorta whimsical really by contrast to his main steez: alan coren if he'd spent the early 90s hanging around student unions and record shops

noodle vague what proportion of the population do you think that is a functional, helpful description to

plain reader be damned imo

stewart lee a somewhat beloved figure to various young fogies of my acquaintance, perhaps unsurprisingly

i think his reinvention is quite likeable. i mean, the 90s stuff seems kind of .. smug. which okay, lots of people think the current stuff is, too, oh well.

and (this is probably one of those small-c conservative things, but) i like -- maybe more than his repping for 'modernist difficulty' or whatever -- his insistence on, you know, human decency, and comedy as being not cruel. i guess i'd like him most if he managed to put the two things together.

unreadable? are you all five years old?

just can't handle this sort of zany word binge

Love - or used to - this sort of sany word binge when it's from e.g. Iain Sinclair or Burroughs, just can't get any traction from Lee, my eyes start skating over the page before the end of the first para. Get a massive sense that's it's all just a game.

For example, if viewed as an "artist", David Bowie makes no sense at all.

what? no. (or, what does it mean to make sense as an artist?)

He seems to be little more than a perpetually spooked moth in slip-ons

cannot make a reasonable picture out of this tbh.

Even typing this feels like I'm engaging with the piece more than it wants or needs.

reading comprehension itt

http://www.chortle.co.uk/features/2011/07/19/13653/stewart_lee%3A_what_i_really_think_about_michael_mcintyre

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jul/17/michael-mcintyre-nastiness-desert-island-discs

"The comedian Michael McIntyre has admitted to being shocked by the "hostility" of other comics, prompted by the scale of his success."

what happened to Rob Newman?

Anyway, I am really enjoying Stewart Lee right now. I am even reading his book.

enjoyed reference to this on his FB page just now, via the Independent's fringe review in 2010:

"Stewart Lee responded to a punchline-spoiling heckle on Friday with a five-minute silence before lying down to deliver the rest of his set on his back".

It is concerning how much that makes me love him.

Highlight of Edinburgh 2-3 years ago = me and some friends laughing loudly at a Silver Surfer reference and being pointed out as part of his schtick re "If any of you have any questions afterwards ask them over there, I don't have the concentration to do a mixed-level set"

lol

Thread makes me angry tbrr

why's that?

Silly ilmish type of frustration kinda 'jesus how do you not get it' smdh annoyed, which is rare for me thy, ppl complaining about his standup being .... his standup, almost seeming to be asking 'does he know he's doing this? Doesnt he realise he's repeating himself? Why is he explaining the joke to the crowd, they seem to get it I am confused this isn't very good', it's all so.......Finnish

lol

I wouldn't worry too much, i reckon people get it by now

seeing him on thurs. very interested to see where he goes next

Fully acknowledge the pointlessness of it, yeah- as i said it strikes me as a v ilm kind of annoyance, obv ppl are free to take or leave him but i have an urge to ensure they're doing so IN THE CORRECT WAY and i'm standing bac? from myself and wondering 'is this how goon beefs start, my god it is isnt it'

I watched Carpet Remnant World on the weekend. Was kinda drunk but I think it's my favourite show he's done to date

xp well if they dont understand what he's doing they should kill themselves tbf

^and if you dont understand &c blah blahhh

I liked CRW but it's all v much refining of where he's been heading forever now, but fine by me obv, when it's so exquisitely judged.

Still, prefer 41st best stand-up, just cos it's a snappier set maybe

darraghmac it strikes me as very in character of u to be mad at ppl for not getting stewart lee 8 months ago

if you prefer... is the headz choice imo

Xp possibly, possibly, but not vmic in the whys and wherefores, if i may be so bold as to pull rank on knowledge of the subject

Xp yeah there's no great gulf between any of them tbh

tickets for sunday presented to me by ms mac last night out of the blue, rah

is he on tour at the moment? i'd love to see him again.

is stewart lee currently in the same place as brooker was 5 years ago? will he be co-presenting itv shows with fearne cotton in five years' time?

― Crackle Box, 10 June 2011 13:37 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no

― caek, 10 June 2011 13:37 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just checking thx

― Crackle Box, 10 June 2011 13:40 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

np. please see everything he's ever written or said for further details.

― caek, 10 June 2011 13:44 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we should do a poll of ppl who never sold out, shouldn't take long with only four or five options

― ♪♫ hey there lamp post, feelin' whiney ♪♫ (darraghmac), 10 June 2011 13:48 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Michael Foot?

― i can't, i won't (Ned Trifle II), 10 June 2011 15:03 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bill Hicks?

― i can't, i won't (Ned Trifle II), 10 June 2011 15:05 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Scholes!!

― Sshhh... mum's up (Ste), 10 June 2011 15:18 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

good list, good finish from ste

tickets for sunday presented to me by ms mac last night out of the blue, rah

― legitimate space monkey parable (darraghmac), Thursday, 17 October 2013 12:02 (2 hours ago)

✓

Please report back; having seen the last few shows, I'm getting a little tired of his schtick so I'd like to know if he changes it up at all.

Will do, but be warned im likely to love whatever he does because stewart lee

not even sure it matters what the actual words are S. Lee says, his delivery is just the best of the best

Yeah I can't see myself getting bored of his schtick anytime soon. I'm off to see him for the first time next month, I'm looking forward to it a great deal.

at this point i'd be disappointed if i went to see him and he didn't claim a select group in the crowd were way quicker than a large portion of blowins

He likes Ted Chippington, so he's OK by me.

darragh, are you going in the next few days or so? If so can you report back? His site says

'N.B - In the 'Much A-Stew' shows the idea is that I will be getting 3hrs together for SLCV3 (BBC2 2014).
The shows will not be 3 hrs long.
I will do different things on different nights in 25/30 minute segments.
Do not go on Twitter saying it seemed disjointed. It should do and will.'

Thinking of going but not if it's just a 25-min 'segment' (sounds like it's more than one but hard to tell).

Sounds like different bits stitched together id say, but sure i'll let you know

yeha so

he came out in advance and did indeed warn us that it would be one half hour bit and a separate half hour bit then an encore if we wanted that would be stuff he was currently working on and would read from notes

duly delivered

felt like i'd heard most or all of the first half hour before tbh? delivered well, without the rancour affected for the tv show. cab driver 'you literally get thrown in jail for saying you're english now' stuff & subsequent riffs.

second half was dwelling on being vasectomised 45 yr old useless to everyone man piece. more of this was new, nicely done tbh.

motifs, repetition etc present throughout, but no audience interplay and v little meta, so i'd say it was a straighter stand-up show than i'd seen him do in quite a while.

encore was a 25 minute riff on pets and dogshit and dead hamsters in specific, sifting through the pages to find his place. not bad, it'll work with work.

not bad? didn't feel it was much more than a run through for him- tbf he also did state this at the start and reckoned he'd be back with it in two years and charge more at that stage, fair enough warning.

been waiting for your review d, I've had the opportunity to see this current show twice already (at the start of the run and about a month later, both cheapies) & it sounds like it's shaping up nicely. These work-in-progress type shows are interesting esp w someone like lee who is always so in control of what he's doing. without the rancour affected for the tv show a great product of his restlessness is that he's slowly starting to give up some of his fallback modes (the "bitter" persona, meta, monotony); feel like in a few years he will be the chillest standup w/o sacrificing what makes him great

did you have this line in yours: we all thought the bigotry was ironic, like ricky gervais; but it turned out to be genuine - like ricky gervais

all about the delivery of course

no! but the biggest laugh was prob the dig at jimmy carr's 'what? what?' after an offensive joke

also digs at mickey flanagan and ubiquitous michael mcintyre ref

hahaha @ gervais line. think that was in carpet remnant world tho

this sounds like a completely difft show to my two actually, which isn't unusual for the pre-vehicle runs

the 1/2hr of old stuff probably the same tho

no! but the biggest laugh was prob the dig at jimmy carr's 'what? what?' after an offensive joke

I have a feeling i might enjoy this riff.

Yeah, idk tho its prob pointless to describe a piece of physical comedy....but he's good at it imo, has prob underutilised it up to the last show (ie mcintyresque running around etc)

Keep it in mind for when you see it and we'll compare notes.

new series starts tonight - I was at one of the recordings so you might get a glimpse of my fat face chortling sycophantically.

Chris morris is in this too apparently.

Thought this was great.

Yeah. Loved the ending especially. it's interesting that they chose to start with this segment - that bit where he glances at his mic stand & gets a laugh is a callback to an earlier part of the set, which I guess will feature in a later episode.

I love his fake phone call routine - the estate agent time is probably my favourite.

was good. sure ive seen him do the phone thing before tho

yeah, the estate agent time!

also in general both lee & herring have been doing bits in their stand-up for a while where they spend ages carrying on an imaginary conversation (like the jehovah's witness bit). Removing the other half of the conversation is inspired imo, it's like sooty but with much longer silences

Removing the other half of the conversation is inspired imo

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zxsbVMrOUNw/SSdyiZKpi9I/AAAAAAAABSc/8eKsiPtdeP8/s400/bobnewhartks9.jpg

inspired by that dude imo

Latest episode fucking wise and hilarious start to finish.

I'm glad he's dropped the skits in favour of just doing his stuff.

I'm genuinely not 100% sure what he's going on about in this piece:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/01/goddamned-appreciation-late-lamented-bill-hicks

pretty clear i think: premature death does not enhance the quality of yr work, Hicks is overpraised in some quarters at least partly cos of his premature death

I'm glad he's dropped the skits in favour of just doing his stuff.

the last 5-10 minutes of this week's episode was a sketch!

Hicks learned his craft in places where people only went out to see live entertainment in order to attack and denigrate it, their hatred for performers exceeded only by their inexplicable desire to pay to watch them.

:D

definitely felt like Morris was the MVP in this week's episode

Morris looks weirdly like Mike D in this.

that last 5 minutes wasn't so much a sketch as eldon and the curious orange guy just acting out something he'd previously talked about in the standup bit. i was disappoint (not least by crappy cgi). friends loved it.

really liked the last five minutes, but was v different, I thought, from the sketches in previous series, which really didn't work.

xp That is the complaint I've had about almost every sketch that's ever been in this show, but I'm loving them this series. And there's no fuckin way the shitty fx weren't deliberately so (partly cause that makes it funnier, partly cause it emphasises the shrinking budget)

oh come on, the delboy falling through the bar side sketch was incredible.

My favourite sketch previous to this was the monty python apple shop one, I know its a lazy parody of 40 year old tropes but eldon did it so well & gail brand coming in just slayed me

Christ, that bit about the conversation with the taxi driver was annoying but overall I liked it

good talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrXVaytvJtQ

it did take me 3 viewings to realise that the eldon-as-pope whoopie cushion joke was actually a francis bacon reference...

was the crappy perspective i didn't like about the cgi. which is perhaps a bit pedantic of me.

eldon-as-pope whoopie cushion joke = series 1

another great talk about writing, imho:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-2rVyizLt8

Thought the last ep was the weakest of a generally very strong series. Enjoyed the Sugababes riff.

when he was roadtesting this material last autumn his rant about Andrew Graham-Dixon was about Lauren Laverne instead. maybe his audience think of her too favourably for the bit to strike a chord

did he intentionally mix up with sugercubes with sugababes?

Yes.

stu lee doing gags about real ales having funny names = dud

crumpet man's thinker ✓

"Best wine in the shop sir, you have excellent taste"

"Ha, my wife woill be surprised to hear that!"

"Yeah... bitches."

XD

THankfully there is now a torrent of this series since I kept forgetting it was on on Saturday night.
So I will be able to catch up.

WAtched a lot of his earlier stuff over the last few weeks too, pretty good for most of it.
This morning With RIchard Not Judy stands as juvenilia mostly though there are some things he revisits
also not 100% taken with a couple of things he had in routines but yeah gfor the most part great.

I need to find where I have Attention Scum! too if it isn't on a crashed drive.

Think he was involved in an animation series I have somewhere too but I can't remember the name.

most of the episodes are on youtube.

TMWRNJ agnosticism has no place on this thread

TMWRNJ is nowhere near as good as my memories of watching it with bemused parents would suggest. I'm scared of revisiting fist of fun, fearing my recollections will be similarly tarnished.

the fist of fun radio series is great!

Saw Ratko Mladic for the first time while watching a documentary with a Serbian friend at an SU and utterly failed to explain what I found so funny.

a+

Don't think I've watched a full Stewart Lee show before but have watched all four episodes of the current series this weekend. Recommendations as what to track down next?

(I deliberately haven't watched him because he used to annoy me at London gigs in the 90s. He always seemed to be stood in my way. I'm trying to let go of grudges though).

the first series of comedy vehicle was more sketch based but after that they are all in the current format.

I remember they would have one or two sketches for about 5 mins, but I’m sure it was mainly stand-up.

Here’s a video recorded before the show started. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxN8PhKzZgY

What I've seen of his has all been pretty good.
I think he may be in danger of overdoing the 'that section of the audience' bit but I still think he's pretty great.

He also seems to be a decent writer he did the liner notes to the Trees remaster cds.

I think the only thing by him I'm not sure I've seen is the Jerry Springer the Musical thing and even that I may have half watched while doing other things.

I'm trying to think the name of a cartoon thing I think he was involved in the writing of about 10 or 15 years ago but it's slipping my mind. Is the name something similar to 'Look Around You' though i know that isn't it.

I was trying to work out if the venue for the latest season is the same Mildmay that was a mod disco back in the 80s. Seems to have an upstairs comedy venue now. & that was refered to as Dalston whereas the current place is Stoke Newington though I think the 2 are next to each other and borders may have shifted over the last 30 years.
I saw the venue referred to in an interview he did with Will self for the Guardian a month or so back
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/feb/26/will-self-meets-stewart-lee-are-you-really-ultimately-embittered-or-not

It's the workingmen's club on Newington Green if that helps.

ONly thing I knew about the venue was what it said in that Guardian piece so sounds like it isn't the same venue. Is the Workingman's club the name of a venue or a function room in a pub called the Mildmay? Also wonder if Mildmay was a common name for pubs since the only one I was aware of was that one I used to go to for mod music.

Ah it's not really a pub. There is a smaller room upstairs with a bar though which could conceivably host 'events' -i had tickets for SLCV recording but only got to sit in this room watching the show on a TV.

I don't think it's a comedy venue except for this either.

Mildmay is the name of an area around Newington Green, for more info visit the Mildmay Club and Institute Union. Never been in it, and, as it seems to be periodically in danger of getting closed down, I wonder if it's being used to its full potential.

I'm still mourning the loss of the Red Rose Club in Finsbury Park, all manner of improv/skronk/noise gigs just 10 minutes walk away - never went to any of the comedy gigs in there though.

... and cheap booze too, how could I forget!

the Mildmay does appear to be the venue, or buys its wallpaper from the same place 8)

Oh my god, the Rod Liddle routine!

I just moved round the corner from the Mildmay Club, had no idea it was filmed there.

'm still mourning the loss of the Red Rose Club in Finsbury Park

I once saw Matthew Shipp give a solo performance there and it was far and away the most oppressively hot gig I've ever been to - in the middle of a London heatwave, sweat was pouring off Shipp after about ten minutes, ditto the audience - and it wasn't as if there were thousands of us crowding out a tiny space - just unreal

I didn't see Stewart Lee at that, but have caught sight of him at various improvvy gigs over the years - I especially remember him coming and standing right in front of me as I was watching Derek Bailey playing at some All Tomorrow's Parties (poss the one curated by Tortoise?)

I think the only time I've seen Stewart Lee at a gig was at some C86 reunion show thing, he was stood next to me watching I think maybe Brilliant Corners or perhaps A Witness, then I think I saw him again later watching the June Brides.

Actually come to think of it, no idea how I still remember this, but an article by Stewart Lee, possibly in some kind of Guardian supplement around 1995 is what got me to listen to the June Brides in the first place, so that would make sense.

He's introducing this in May

https://www.wegottickets.com/event/352608

"GRANT MCLENNAN 10TH ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE
The Wave Pictures, The Left Outsides, Bill Botting & the Two Drink Minimums
LONDON: Bush Hall
FRI 6TH MAY, 2016 7:00pm

Grant McLennan died on May 6 2006. Marking exactly 10 years since his death, comedian Stewart Lee will introduce contemporary musicians Gerry Love, The Wave Pictures, Pete Astor, The Wolfhounds, The Left Outsides, and Bill Botting & the Two Drink Minimums.

They'll play songs by and songs influenced by Grant McLennan. Stewart Lee will also play some McLennan covers.

Plus special guest tbc."

i think the rod little routine is finally where i understand how people can hate this guy and turn him off. he finally achieved his character's ideal of a routine so obscure and frustrating that i just stopped watching.

But that made it kind of brilliant. It was certainly not entry level Stewart Lee. Though the popadom munching was a bit much.

The final aside line was a tad sadistic innit? I need to rewatch to see how he got into that cos I dozed off for a little while watching it.

Every time you doze off...

Was this the equivalent of that time that Low played a thirty-nine minute version of one song at a festival?

I paused it just before that poppadom bit to go and get something to eat (not a poppadom) and then settled down to watch the rest of it.

I went back and watched that bit through. So now making more sense of it.
Do wonder if live audience get anything after cameras cut off. Or if it ended there for them too. Or if whoever looked at their watch again.

Checking a watch could be communicating so many things including being bored, having to pick the kids up or thinking "This is genius, I'm going to time how long he can make poppadum crunching sounds".

Do wonder if that bit was something he runs variations on if he does that section live. Like he probably recognises that at least somebody in the audience is going to do something along the lines and that last aside is probably the closest thing to a punchline the poppadom eating bit gets. Though he does return to what he's doing after saying that.
Somebody is likely to be making some signs of disinterest that he might pick up on and say something similar in reaction to.

thought that episode was fabulous

He just wants to be Joe McPhee rather than a comedian sometimes. Tbh i was laughing by end

I saw the tour when he was refining the material for the show and the Rod Liddle bit was really kind of short (same food/stain bit but poppadum munching was just to set up something else - which I have forgotten what it is).

Really disappointed that Radio Andorra (which was the funniest part of the show, and had a bit like poppadum munching in that it was pushing the joke by repetition of an innocuous noise - in this case a lizard vomiting) seems to have been dropped as it would/should have been in the patriotism show. Ditto the extended routine about the ghost of Bill Hicks, which felt like a mental breakdown on stage, which would presumably have been part of the death episode.

That makes the candidate for the last show the routine about having a piss with his granddad (and the Radio Times says it's about a look back at his childhood, so seems right), which has the potential alienate even many who didn't think the poppadum munching went very far.

Actually Radio Andorra could conceivably fit into the childhood theme so all may not be lost.

liddle routine so good

"audiences like you... you as good as murdered Robin Williams"

cancelled

so the cunts can concentrate on paying for more mediocre shit like season 2 of The Night Manager, fuck em

should be good for a few minutes of material

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/news/2105/bbc_cancels_stewart_lee_show/

I am really glad to have produced 12 hours of stand-up with an old school 20th century BBC logo on it. The team I got to work with were all superb, including Richard Webb, Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Tim Kirkby and regular cast members Kevin Eldon, Paul Putner and Tara Flynn. And the last episode of SLCV4 was my favourite of the 24 we made over the ten years. Looking around The Machynlleth Comedy Festival last weekend I realised how lucky I had been to be the comedian that got to do four series like this.

& yeah he/"the comedian stewart lee" will def capitalise on the whole being cancelled thing. Shame tho as it did feel like there was at least another series in it, it had developed really organically

i could just put celebrity big brother segment on repeat all day

^^^^^^^^^^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9wZ73YWGk

i watched some Comedy Vehicle on netflix last night and couldn't figure out if the interludes of him being seemingly earnestly interviewed by Armando Iannucci were meant to be serious, and it was really off-putting. relieved when my friend confirmed it is meant to be satire, although still not sure what the joke is...

it's basically self-deprecating humour that aims at what could be construed as - and certainly has been painted as by sections of the uk press - the pompous or elitist nature of his stand-up routines which eschew jokes and traditional humor and are anti-comedic, frequently unfunny, repetitious, etc.

This becomes much more pronounced when Chris Morris takes over as the interviewer

myeah, it stills rubbs me the wrong way. 'explaining the joke' (even if done with tongue in cheek) and all that... i should've figured given the smoky room and slow-panning camera, and yet

i was surprised at the content of some of the jokes, too. in one about how the internet is depriving kids' minds of the spark of creativity--which i felt was far too banal an opinion for him to actually hold--i kept waiting him to flip it, but it never came

the conceit of Stewart Lee is that we, the audience, are supposed to do the flipping ourselves

maybe you just weren't in the right frame of mind? those interludes are some of the funniest bits imo, precisely because they're so close to the truth (and because of their heroic levels of navel-gazing)

the vegas one on brand above should be wink wink enough but some of the other ones are subtle enough to send you the wrong way if youre not in on it

and in the last couple of standalone shows at least (can't remember if this applies to the vehicles) he has started literally instructing people

hes done that for some time now tbf

the repetition of the instructive parts has now taken on a patina of its own rly

fun to think of where it all ends

he reminds me of you, d

my advice to flopson would be to check out if you prefer a milder comedian... as it's start to finish brilliant and gives you a good sense of what lee's going for lately, just amazingly well-structured. And then on the other hand the early 00s stand up comedian DVD if it's out there which is just a bunch of old funny routines but is a good intro to the persona

He experiments on the tv programme which I appreciate but it's worth seeing the 2hr sets to get an idea of where he gets the confidence to do that (as the character would have you believe it's just arrogance)

(oh and by appreciate I do mean lmao to be really clear)

i am not as funny clever angry or nice as s lee but thats the nicest thing anyone on ilx ever said to me unless it was just a direct fat jab

I can see it kinda

who's the herring tho

ive not seen any much herring either with or without lee tbh

he's ok, inspired when he hits stride - they worked really well together imo

The top gear thing is so incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWsoIwhaL5E

I think you had to be there for most Lee & Herring stuff. Much as I loved it at the time

explaining the joke is definitely one of the key SL moves, goes hand in hand with dissecting the audience's reactions, reiterating things to absurdity (sometimes employing 'the comedy of linguistic exactitude' for a punchline) or dragging them out into an awkward stand off with the audience. that these processes can be continued off the stage is testament to the slow grinding force of the logic that drives it all: a process of breaking down the path up to a punchline into ever smaller steps, SL berating the audience like zeno telling achilles why he can't catch the tortoise

he's doing his current show 6 nights a week so by the time he gets to salford it should be quite ripe

the timing and delivery of the eg sixth callback is where the genius lies tho all youve said is obv tru

my advice to flopson would be to check out if you prefer a milder comedian... as it's start to finish brilliant and gives you a good sense of what lee's going for lately, just amazingly well-structured. And then on the other hand the early 00s stand up comedian DVD if it's out there which is just a bunch of old funny routines but is a good intro to the persona

― wins, Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:21 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i must have watched most of these with my roommate in college, who introduced me to him. but i was very high at the time, and it's been a while

i am not as funny clever angry or nice as s lee but thats the nicest thing anyone on ilx ever said to me unless it was just a direct fat jab

― trilby mouth (darraghmac), Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:45 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

more the inscrutability and always-one-step(level)-ahead(above)-edness but there maybe a physical resemblence, too, iiircwywdyllll

Oh that's a nice long one.

more the inscrutability and always-one-step(level)-ahead(above)-edness but there maybe a physical resemblence, too, iiircwywdyllll

― flopson, Tuesday, January 10, 2017 7:42 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(i should add that i, like Abbott, find lee p cute)

He makes noises on the free jazz album:

Bristol Fashion by Capri-Batterie & Stewart Lee

I enjoyed this column he's written about Morrissey more than I've enjoyed any of his columns for quite a few years

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/how-to-treat-morrissey-stop-listening-to-him-stewart-lee

He crops up in the Shirley Collins book All In The Downs though I hope he's got his weight back down since the photo in there he didn't look healthy.

His latest show was very funny but the ending was a little bit “banky’s let himself go”

as a fat guy i love it when people concern troll my health

Looked fine when I last saw him at the bus stop. He has a bit about ppl on twitter saying they saw him and he looks a bit ill tho.

His latest show was very funny but the ending was a little bit “banky’s let himself go”

He's always maintained that his onstage persona is a comedic, self-righteous amplification of himself and you shouldn't actually be onboard with everything he says, but...raging against selfies is some straight Live At The Appolo shit and there's no degree of irony that can save it.

Very much enjoyed the Erkin Koray over the break tho.

live at the apollo is pro selfie, it's ok to be anti selfie

"Young people take too many selfies to appreciate the beauty in life" is the hackiest shit, the bread and butter of mainstream comics Lee would scoff at. It's not even that I'm pro-selfie, but you might as well be telling kids to stand up straight and stop listening to that untz untz music.

it's literally as trite as a gnat's chuff

its either well done or its not

havent seen it or dont remember if i have so cant say

all other criticism meeeeeeeeh

it's absurd to say all such negativity is off limits, you can't grumble about ppl being curmudgeons

I had this moment recently where this posing cunt was taking a selfie out in the green belt, with a really forced cheesy grin, and then was embarrassed that I'd caught him in this moment and fake grin turned to scowl even though I nodded at him + said alright. Not my fault I'd witnessed the not so dignified + contrived post scaenae of his social media existence, I say. Anyway I wouldn't attempt to turn this into a comedy routine!

I liked the mate-y young guy bit, the voice was like a slightly toned-down/less northern verzh of the one my friends and I used to express dissatisfaction to each other in

this is a well-established ogmor fact tbf

i now do it and its driving mrs mad despite my never having heard it

bless you deems for being amongst the ~five ppl who pay attention. my other half would happily & maliciously join in with and escalate any mate-voicing that was initiated, now we're extremely mature and just watch documentaries.

ogmor is def someone i wish i cd hang out with but manchester is literally the other side of the world

xp m8ing habits

I took care to avoid such a pun

next time I've got plans to head down to london I'll sound the horn

it's absurd to say all such negativity is off limits, you can't grumble about ppl being curmudgeons

It's not the negativity I mind - that's his whole shtick, it's fine - but in the past he was better at finding things that aren't basic as fuck to complain about.

The mate voice was good yes.

sort of how i felt when Louis CK did a bit in one of his latter-day specials about how parents let their kids watch too much tv and eat to much shitty food

there probably IS genuinely funny and unexpected angle on those things but he didn't find it

the basics need addressing too, iirc it wasn't dwelt upon but was part of a bigger thing

'maybe he shouldn't have been mocking the guy's name'

'he's normally great but this is bad, he should apologise'

willing to die on this hill: no. no. no.

the weaponising of antisemitism-calling by hard-right cunts is the only cultural evil here. even making out that stewart lee has anything to apologise for is deeply fucking wrong imo, it is capitulation to the absolute and disingenuous fuckery of these true bastards and their attempts to shut down criticism by any ad hominem means necessary

look at their self-righteous tone, look at how their lickspittle followers descend on 'racist' stewart lee with unrestrained venom. this is the culture war and they try to make the most preposterous bullshit look like common sense. and we are too scared of offence to call them out properly. lee is not even remotely close to being antisemitic, nor is punning on tugendhat's name, and these cunts need to be told

this has made me so fucking enraged for some reason. i bet there's a retraction of some kind. no surrender, please

i see brendan o'neill has taken the same attitude as me, maybe time to quit the internet lol

Jesus I'd be ready to top myself if O'Neil had my back on some controversy I'd posted my way into.

A wake up call, if you will

gentle reminder that the lex was always already correct abt comedy tbfttl

final l there stands for "lex" btw

whats 1/51 as a percentage

The last series of Jack Dee's Lead Balloon often premiered on BBC2 after midnight on a Sunday.

― kraudive, Saturday, 30 April 2011 09:49 bookmarkflaglink

Wow. How did that go down?

― StanM, Saturday, 30 April 2011 09:52 bookmarkflaglink

Nice.

Also, LJ otm.

without comedy, a politics of resistance is impossible

I appreciate plenty of things about the lex, but I will respectfully suggest that the world of humour is not his area of expertise, not that he hasn't been very funny at times of course.

"willing to die on this hill: no. no. no."

Trumpian tripling down favoured by Spiked us it

(xp) I think he's been proven right as the years have gone on.

willing to die on this hill: no. no. no.

I don't suppose you could die on this hill a little more quietly, could you?

Yes the right-wing are gleefully capitalising but he's entirely stupid for giving them easy ammunition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHC13MYcrR4

Didn't realize he was a handsome lad back in the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5yrD8Ydc_o

Morrissey's let himself go iirc

Anti vaxx propaganda lad in the area (going to assume it's just one person, funnier that way, and also that they're male because come on) has been on a spree; picture of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell with "compliant has beens" written next to them and one of Stewart Lee next to some spotify images saying "Sir Stuart Lee?". Not sure whether this means anti-vaxxer thinks Lee will get knighted for removing his music from spotify, and whether the misspelling of his name is a deliberate diss. Either way the guy lives in the area, think he'll be amused.

Poor Stewart; he lost Gr*h*m L*n*han and now he’s lost the antivaxx crowd too? Must be devastated.

was just looking up if he'd said anything re antivaxx cos I hadn't heard about him in a while. & he has left Spotify which I guess is a statement.

Sir Stuart Lee knew that stanning for Gina Miller, Ken Clarke and Jess Phillips in his blog would pay off in the end!

I think I know who the young dumb guy who has been putting up all the anti-vaxxer stickers in my locality is. He brought up the subject of "the great reset" with me once and I stopped the conversation dead before he embarrassed himself any further. And the stickers first started appearing on signs and seats in the park where he walks his very adorable Manchester Terrier, Romo. He's never heard of Simon Price either btw!

x-posts

He used to annoy me in my London gig going days, as he always seemed to be stood in front of me, obscuring my view with his hairdo. I'm slightly tempted to see him on his current tour, if tickets are available ... and I don't really go and see comedy.

He did a good Phil Minton impression when I saw him a few years ago

He did a good Phil Minton impression when I saw him a few years ago

I really wish he wouldn't offer his opinions on UK politics and beyond because he is just as myopic and as blinkered and absolutely clueless as anyone from the UK media classes. Just a very basic melt. There was a Ch4 interview and I was just screaming at the TV for him to STFU!

He was concerned that people might be spreading misinformation about Kieth. He considered Adolescence a groundbreaking masterpiece. All the problems in the world can be traced back to Trump and Brexit. Honestly, he must be in serious cognitive decline.

maybe he was doing a bit

NARRATORS VOICE:

his Simon Hedges bit has gone right over my head. I take everything back, it was an incredible performance.

at one point he posits that Obama publicly humiliating Trump was some kind of tragically bad 1914 Sarajevo moment for Western liberalism. His brain is mushy peas these days.

I mean if we've learned anything about the politics of comedians these last few years

you can seem like someone with a curious mind and be capable of abstract thoughts and then just to be on the safe side, hire the writing team from the West Wing to write your political thoughts for you.

“pulling an iannucci” iirc. it’s very strange.

Guessing he mainly meets other people working in comedy/journalism and (as he said in the interview) reads/watches a lot of news, so wishy washy FBPE views are surely inevitable. He is at least on the right side of the "trans debate" etc., that's probably all we can hope for.

he could do with taking a leaf out his fellow FPBE traveller Joylon Maugham's book. We have a Labour government doing lots of horrible right-wing stuff on top of doing vile UKIP rhetoric. It might be an idea to be not completely blind to this when opining on UK politics.

Have we talked about who his current girlfriend is on this thread? Done a ctrl-F and apparently not.

I have never heard of her, and she is much younger than him.

She's pretty bad, certainly no Bridget Christie. But tbh they're grown adults, it's none of my business.

well yeah gossip is all about stuff that is none of your business, but what the hell, someone spill the beans here.. lol

It's just, if you are looking for a wishy-washy FBPE "political" comedian, then she seems to be as much that as it is possible to be.

heh, wouldn't want to be at a zone 1 dinner party with these two fuckers

All comedians are pretty bad tbf

I think the thing here is that the SL brand is supposedly about him being a cerebral, more content than style standup and it turns out irl he is quite boilerplate and shallow. And he is seemingly a very careerist performer and motivated to not offend the UK establishment. In other words a wanker!

wouldn't want to be at a zone 1 dinner party with these two fuckers

Oh, you underrate the layers of privilege in London! They are zone 3.

Zone 1 would be more of a David Mitchell/Victoria Coren tier I think.

Oh yeah he's relatively tinpot but he's working on a promotion to zone 2!

i'm a provincial, i wanna see a table for these tiers with relevant dice rolls

FWIW both couples are Zone Two (N16/NW6). Zone One? It me.

Really dislike the melty comedy of Lee’s new partner. His first wife was a music journalist.

His first wife?

Is this the imaginary black wife?