Stewart Lee is one of those "marmite" comedians, you either love or hate him. He came to prominence in the 1990's as part of Lee & Herring and then hit the front pages by co-writing "Jerry Springer - The Opera" which caused the Christian right to protest against him, without having seen the piece, of course.
In recent years he has returned to touring and, like the best comedians having fallen under the radar, he has re-emerged as the "comedians comedian", appearing unexpectedly at 41 on Channel 4's Best ever stand-up comedian list.
Oddly, we first saw him at the Cheltenham Jazz festival in 2010, compering a Free form Jazz concert. Sadly, I generally hated the evening but it does begin to explain his comedy.
He is not your standard comedian. We finally caught his stand-up show in Cardiff last year after re-scheduling a "Vegetable Stew" gig. This year's show is " Carpet Remnant World" and basically the 2 hour set involves him haranguing the audience for not laughing more at cetain moments and confessing that being in his early 40's & staying at home looking after his young son he has nothing to say.
This of course is nonsense. Every word is meiculously crafted and the ability to pretend to end the first half on a badly received joke, allowing him to perform for another 10 minutes to get a better laugh and then moan that we had driven him to finish on a shitty pant joke is comedy genius.
The second half shows more of a theme emerging although he has a good swipe at modern comedians who use serious events in their lives to gain laughs & sympathy through pathos. (His hidden attack on Adam Hills was as wince-making as it was funny).
Finally we get a set-piece about how retail shops who use " World" in their title are little more than cons, though it does explain why a variety of carpets are standing proudly erect behind him.
You may be lucky enough to find funnier comedians around, but none will be as clever at constructing a show and controlling an audience.
Go and revel at the master of 21st century stand-up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment