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.

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?

A rather breathless half hour of Lee cycling around various record shops in NE London and stopping at various musical points of interest along the way, some relaly interesting little snippets shared here too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN2X_RImdZ8

Wait, wine fridges in record shops are a thing now?

(More crucially: thanks, twas amusing.)

enjoyed that very much, and i wouldn't have minded the video being an extra ten minutes long if there could have been some space for stew to breathe

Have been watching these in short Instagram reels over the last coupla months, but looking forward to sitting down and watching the whole thing as a thing

went to see his new show in Cambridge two weeks ago, would recommend, not as funny as he has been, but it had heart to it iykwim

I bumped into him in a record shop recently (a Rough Trade East instore show), thanked him for getting Rosemary Tonks' The Bloater republished. I've read Businessmen As Lovers too recently. She's pretty great. Anyway, where was I, er, the gig was lovely and the new Umlauts album is gonna be sick. Stewart Lee. Etc

saw his new show a few weeks ago and the first half was vg the second half was imo not so good. of the latter, if bad dylan impressions are the big laugh (and tbf it was a very big laugh) id have thought he'd have had a look at that himself and scratched his head

Slobodan Milosevic has bounced back and is looking fairly well

Much as I loved Comedy Vehicle I find him a bit exhausting live tbh. Best show of his I ever saw was a 20min spot at Josie Long's night (RIP).

I enjoyed the second half but I've never seen him live before, so hard to gauge. I was worried the 2nd half would go totally off the rails but the persona detours were brief and didn't overstay their welcome (except when they were meant to, I'm assuming).

(I assume the "you're a shitty audience and I've fucked this gig up" bit happens in every show )

Yup, I believe that's part of every gig.
Saw the show a week or two ago and liked it - preferred the first half, but the second half was fine, tho it felt more like a few funny moments.

Much as I loved Comedy Vehicle I find him a bit exhausting live tbh.

Saw him in Edinburgh when he was trialling the show that became Content Provider - much funnier than the finished product (which admittedly I only saw on TV), partly because he could be a bit more relaxed and discursive. There was a great detour about buying tons of cheap copies of his books from Fopp that didn't make it to the final show.

Still never quite forgiven him for coming and standing right in front of me when I was about to watch Derek Bailey playing at the Tortoise All Tomorrows Parties, mind.

i sold him some records on discogs last year:

the fall - frenz experiment w/ bonus 7"
durutti column - say what you mean 12"
v/a - greasy truckers party LP (feat. man, brinsley schwarz & hawkwind)

I fear I will spend my entire life thinking of that catchphrase whenever I see a pear cider. which isn't as infrequent as one might expect.

Still never quite forgiven him for coming and standing right in front of me when I was about to watch Derek Bailey playing at the Tortoise All Tomorrows Parties, mind.

― Ward Fowler, Monday, June 29, 2026 10:10 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I can't quite be bothered to go back and check but if I have contributed to this thread it is likely to note that in my gig reviewing years he always seemed to be stood in front of me with his stage obscuring hairdo.

That music shop video is great btw

It reminded me of this old clip of Bjork visiting record shops back in the 1990s, when they were called record shops, and they still sold records! Not like nowadays, where they're called record shops, and they also sell records. They still sell records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUkE-d-lni0

At the 0:48 mark she either convincingly feigns interest whilst listening to a record nerd talking about records, or she actually is interested in what he has to say! Which might be because she's a professional musician. "I think everyone wants a partner who looks at them the way Bjork looks at record store man", says the top comment.

What would I say to Stewart Lee if I met him? I'd probably mutter "no, Jesus, not ahh", and then mentally debate with myself whether it was Rich or Stew who said that line.

It was Rich, wasn't it? Stewart Lee was Jesus. So it actually would make sense. It would make sense. Then I'd run out of things to say, and that would be the end of my walk-on role in the life of Stewart Lee.

Cjockney Bjork

I'd love it if Bjork had pulled up to the counter on rails and said, 'Any Jungle in, guy?' like in Human Traffic

Boring practical aside - is there are actual interval in the current show between the two above mentioned halves? I'm going next week and, sitting right up at the top of the theatre, a wee break from the heat etc might be good.

yes

yeah, it was a bit under half an hour

Fantastic, thanks.

It will be the first time I've seen him live since way back in the Lee & Herring days.