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It’s not often I’m
topical, or can be seen to be riding the zeitgeist, or am driven by anything
other than coincidence or the complex algorithms of Amazon’s data-capture and
recommendations software. But, it seems Stewart
Lee’s been in the press lately!
Get a load of me.
Now I’m not condoning the putting
of phones into arse cracks (unless they belong to one of the children who live
in my house – then it’s fine) but I am pleased to be at least no fewer than 5
days behind the news cycle! Of course, technically, I was into
Stewart Lee’s work before he became news-worthy…
What we have here is a
collection of scripts of notable gigs Lee performed over the course of his
lifetime, interspersed with (many many) snippets of commentary or contextual
information. In fact, by bare comparison of word counts, one might consider the
notes as the main body of text.
If you like Stewart Lee,
and if you’ve seen any of his Comedy Vehicles (or downloaded illegally his
DVDs), then you’ll recognise these sets. His comedy is meticulously scripted
(if you believe what he says) with a few opportunities to digress or improvise
built in, so his shows are very similar across the duration of his tours, and
often it’s hard to pinpoint an easily repeatable joke or funny bit without a
long and tedious preamble. That’s not to say they aren’t absolutely hilarious! In
fact, arguably his most notoriously funny bit, about drunkenly vomiting into
the gaping anus of Jesus Christ, is a very, very long lead-up to a joke about
Joe Pasquale stealing his jokes. Or not in that instance. And whether or not
you believe he’s writing his footnote essays from behind the persona of Stewart
Lee, 41st Best Comedian, or out in the open, the methodological and personal
explanations are fascinating to read (particularly the sacred circle which is basically
the Holy Grail of comedic intention).
There’s always the risk run
that having something explained or forcing someone to critically consider
something removes some of the wonderment and fun from the thing itself – I reference
my degree in English Literature for sucking quite a bit of joy from reading for
a little while – but then that’s what Stewart Lee likes to do; he enjoys losing
a room and then trying to win them back, he does it on purpose, and he’s very
good at it. I particularly love his ‘Rod Liddle in an Indian restaurant’ bit,
which goes on for a good fifteen minutes* when the joke could have been over in
one or fewer.
If you want a good laugh, enjoy
the impotent rage of both Christians and entomologists, and want an experience that
will send you to the bargain bins at HMV** for a damaged copy of his stand-up
show DVDs, then have a read. It’s better than his first novel.
*I haven’t timed it – it just
feels that long.
**Other chain record/media
stores are available, but for how long one can only guess
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