Gigs, gags and going for a gong
Irish Times
August 23, 2008

........The first show I see is Stewart Lee at the Stand Comedy Club. His show is called Scrambled egg and is subtitled: Old Material and new. In random order. (Notes towards a television project). The expected lack of flow given the show's title was evident the night I was there. It was a particularly disjointed night but when individual pieces are this good it almost doesn't matter. Lee's delivery is a quiet, minimalist hum, like comedy on a different sound wave - the ears gradually attune to the seeming sequence of repeated notes that suddenly reveal a relative cymbal crash of comedy.

His mechanism is reducto ad absurdum: taking the logic of an idea to beyond its nth degree - his journey often continues long after other comedians have stopped the car to let the laugh off, and he continues trundling along seemingly aimless roads that suddenly and unexpectedly turn in glittering comedy plazas. He is a brilliant comedian.

Unlike Lee, the onus on other comedians is to bring a "show" to Edinburgh, rather than an hour of stand-up. For it is a "show" that will win the awards........