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Work in progress, towards a new touring show, from the comedian currently
fashionable amongst broadsheet newspaper critics due to his BBC2 series Stewart
Lee’s Comedy Vehicle.
Stew says, ‘In this show, an account of something that happened to me in a
coffee shop will be used as a convenient framing device for disparate material
possibly concerning English Heritage, Top Gear, The Olympics, emigration,
prawns, Bella Pasta, The National Trust, farmers, DH Lawrence, piglets,
cathedrals, bees, Iggy Pop, cider adverts, riots etc etc.’
As usual, expect …
1) Some punchy stuff near the top
2) inexplicable hostility towards relatively innocuous figures
3) silences
4) repetition
5) sudden and/or gradual shifts in tone, velocity and volume
6) long routines experimenting with form rather than content
7) the possibility of failure
8) a quasi-serious bit at the end.
2009 is the 22nd fringe appearance by this obtuse man.
‘Lee destroys his topics with the precision, relentlessness and brutality of a
medieval torturer; repeatedly and meticulously attacking the same small point
until it becomes weakened to the point of collapse. Shorter jokes would be
funnier, but nowhere near as transfixing, as the audience are compelled to see
just how far he dare push it, and left to marvel at the man’s sheer audacity.
There’s some tension as to whether it will work or not, and occasionally it
doesn’t.’ Steve Bennett, Chortle
‘Apparently ill at ease with both speech and movement, Lee’s presence creates a
kind of negative energy, a black hole of vacancy, pregnant with lack of
meaning.’ Tim Out, Time Out London
‘His whole tone is one of complete, smug condescension’ Roz Laws, Birmingham
Sunday Mercury
‘I thought, ‘I'm funnier than Stewart Lee. If he can do it, I can’.’ Al Murray,
The Times
For more information visit www.stewartlee.co.uk