Scrambled Egg ★★★ - August 2008 The Guardian - By Brian Logan - August 9th, 2008

Woe betide those who find themselves on the receiving end of Stewart Lee’s sarcasm. It kills with a smile – then bludgeons the corpse. One of the several routines, old and new, he is rotating as part of this year’s Edinburgh show turns the irony on an American comedian called Franklyn Ajaye. Lee cites Ajaye’s…

Scrambled Egg ★★★★ - August 2008 Fest Magazine - By Ben Judge - August 9th, 2008

“You’ve worked me out… I’m just looking at an object and being sarcastic about it,” says Stewart Lee, breaking down his set to a finely tuned analytical degree, having just looked at and been sarcastic about both Franklyn Ajaye’s 1974 album I’m A Comedian, Seriously and Chris Moyles’ autobiography The Tough Second Book. “And I’ve…

ELIZABETH AND RALEIGH: LATE BUT LIVE ★★ - August 2008 The Times - By Dominic Maxwell - August 5th, 2008

Having successfully turned Johnson and Boswell into stand-up comics at the Fringe last year, the writer Stewart Lee has now tried the same trick for Elizabeth I and Walter Raleigh. Simon Munnery goes from Johnson to a queen in whiteface and wig. Miles Jupp becomes the breech-wearing explorer-cum- spy-cum-poet from Budleigh Salterton. The result, sad…

ELIZABETH AND RALEIGH: LATE BUT LIVE ★★★ - August 2008 Onstage Scotland - August 4th, 2008

The relationship between Sir Walter Raleigh and his questionably virgin queen has long been pondered upon, but this new play by Stewart Lee harbours no such pretensions. It is from the outset a larger-than-life, multi-media caricature of their supposed love story, turning it into a kind of lurid adult pantomime complete with Simon Munnery as…

ELIZABETH AND RALEIGH: LATE BUT LIVE ★★ - August 2008 Fringereview.co.uk - August 4th, 2008

Walter Raleigh, in a high state of excitement, believes his many achievements and discovery of the potato and tobacco, will win the hand of Queen Elizabeth. In this endeavour, he is sadly mistaken. Walter Jupp (sic) does the best with the material given, but his patter falls short. The play only picks up with the…

ELIZABETH AND RALEIGH: LATE BUT LIVE ★★ - August 2008 EdFest Magazine - By Neil Simpson - August 4th, 2008

Edinburgh is famous for its history and its comedy; Elizabeth and Raleigh provides both in a medley of cross-dressing, singing, and slideshows. At first we are welcomed by Sir Walter Raleigh (Miles Jupp), promoter of those two bastions of civilization; the potato and smoking. Raleigh’s opening monologue provides a brief overview of personal triumphs (through…