I knew Abramovich was taking the piss - March 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 6th, 2022

Superyachts seek safe havens. Property portfolios dissolve. Lawyers are engaged, accountants contracted. Politicians confect plausible denials over ostentatious donations. Tory party co-chairman Ben Elliot deletes online boasts of his company’s “15 years’ experience providing luxury lifestyle management services to Russia’s elite and corporate members”. It seems there were oligarchs everywhere, all along. We’ve been living…

In the name of God, let Sue Gray do her job - January 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 23rd, 2022

I’m back on the road until August with my five-star standup show, Snowflake Tornado, mouthing confirmation-bias to packed rooms of masked elitists. Over six nights at the Oxford Playhouse, I saw the familiar and friendly staff and crowds return, though the historic Eagle and Child pub sadly appears to have closed. It was here in…

How committed is No 10 to toppling the topplers? - January 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 9th, 2022

In the old days, vandals and hooligans simply knocked things over, be they flowerpots, bus stops, old ladies or standards of common English decency. But these days anything that is knocked over, as long as it is knocked over with a sense of clear moral purpose, isn’t merely knocked over, it seems, but “toppled”. Indeed,…

The night I met Christ at a bus stop in Dalston - January 2022 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 2nd, 2022

“The poor are always with us. So speaks the man who has not learned to use a whip correctly!” And also thus spake the unsung genius comedian Simon Munnery, in character in his 90s parody of impotent bedsit fascism, The League Against Tedium. The act seems arguably less satirical today as its best lines have…

Step forward Liz Truss – willing wicker woman for the Brexit bonfire - December 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - December 26th, 2021

In The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973), the key to the sacrifice’s efficacy is that Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodwoodward, 1930), embraces victimhood willingly. And so Liz Truss climbs into her photo-op tank and trundles gladly toward the burning wicker effigy of the role of Chief Negotiator for Exiting the European Union Brexit (formerly Secretary of…

The Shaun Bailey photo really is a party exposé - December 2021 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - December 19th, 2021

Since the weekend, I have been running in my revived 2020 standup show in impressively Covid-secure Scottish comedy clubs, filled with the forgiving laughter of the simply-glad-to-be-alive. On Sunday night I walked the south side of York Place, Edinburgh, towards the Piccante chip shop on Broughton Street. Crossing to the north side of the road…