Review: Stewart Lee – Carpet Remnant World - November 2011 Spoonfed - By Emma McAlpine - November 24th, 2011

All Stewart Lee has done this year is drive to gigs in provincial towns and look after his son. He’s got nothing to talk about. He has no sob story to tug on people’s heartstrings with and can’t make a show out of crazy adventures like Dave Gorman. “You’re defined by what you do”, he…

Stewart Lee, Soho – review - November 2011 The Evening Standard - By Bruce Dessau - November 24th, 2011

The older Stewart Lee gets the more militant he becomes. Carpet Remnant World finds stand-up’s Tony Benn raging at the state of the nation with satirical style. It also finds him raging at the state of comedy. There are swipes at Frankie Boyle, Russell Kane, Jimmy Carr, Ricky Gervais and more. Deceased writers do not…

Carpet Remnant World - November 2011 Chortle - By Steve Bennett - November 24th, 2011

Poor Stewart Lee. Despite BBC Two’s best efforts to conceal the second series of his stand-up show, he finds himself more popular than ever, attracting audiences big enough to sustain a residency in London’s Leicester Square Theatre from now until the middle of February. But such success does not sit easy on Lee’s weary shoulders,…

Alan Wilkinson – Practice - November 2011 November 20th, 2011

The future of British free improvisation is safe in the hands of modestly monumental musicians like Alan Wilkinson, captured here alone and virtually naked, blowing his horn unaccompanied in a disused Dalston hospital. A stately and stark take on Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman shows sceptics Wilkinson can carry a tune should he wish to, and…

Barrel – Gratuitous Abuse - November 2011 November 20th, 2011

Alison Blunt, Ivor Kallin, and Hannah Marshall spontaneously score three lengthy pieces, and a short spasm, for violin, viola and cello. Barrel’s music, they admit, involves a lot of scraping. Initially, the trio’s genetic make up means it’s difficult to for the listener to peer through the shadow of the classical tradition or the minimalist…

The Fall – Ersatz GB - November 2011 November 13th, 2011

The Fall’s 29th studio album, in 35 years, finds Mark E Smith fronting a kind of amphetamine drone rock band. The 2011 model grooves on two or three chord riffs, pounding bass booms, and Eleni Poulou’s retro keyboard blips, like some ancient krautrock legend, but pin-eyed with punk intensity, spattered with Smith’s kaleidoscopic shards of…