I’ll tell you what’s got us choking on our granola… - August 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 30th, 2020

The nation will fall. The monarchy will collapse. The ravens are leaving the Tower of London. They flee not in anticipation of another Landrover-crash Prince Andrew interview, but because they are bored by virus London’s lack of bustle. I understand. Without live music, live comedy, and live yoghurt, London is the congested, polluted, overpriced hell-hole…

Come summer 2021, who’s going to save our sorry asses? - August 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 9th, 2020

Two dozen young people, their hair unkempt, their face masks filthy, stood on the rolling route of the Ridgeway at Overton, holding aloft on wooden shafts an enormous pair of billowing ladies’ bloomers. White against the blue sky like nylon clouds, written upon their wind-filled cheeks were the words “sorry ass”. “Sorry ass!”, chanted the…

The Brexit government is lost in a fog of lies - August 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 2nd, 2020

Michael Gove is standing in a public waste disposal site in west London, objective reality dissolving around him, surrounded by a semicircle of imaginary attendants he has made himself from discarded rubbish; mop-handle spines, coathanger arms, sofa cushion bodies, and rotting rubber football heads. “These are my attendants, Leapy Lee,” he cried up at me,…

Of course there’s a future for the British fishing industry – on stage - July 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - July 12th, 2020

On the quay at Port Isaac yesterday evening, lit by a midsummer moon, I stood before an assembled shoal of grizzled Cornish fishermen, fat Henry V in Fred Perry, waving my Olivier award like a sword. “I know you. You’ve survived storms at sea, gales that tear trees from fields. You’ve withstood winds that raise…

My Neil Diamond tribute to Churchill - June 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - June 28th, 2020

Hibernation is over! Outside our front window, sex workers comfort strangers again, and opposite Sainsbury’s men fight with their shirts off, like boar or rutting stags, arousing passing women, loveless for too long in lockdown. And in Parliament Square, Winston Churchill emerges from his winter wooden box, snuffling the virus-free air like a cocaine groundhog.…

Now Boris Johnson is talking through his Tugendhat - May 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - May 17th, 2020

Stay alert! On Twitter, Tom Tugendhat, The Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, is talking. There! He is thanking the prime minister for his “very clear message”. Tom Tugendhat! On Twitter! Now! He is enjoying the sheer coral sea clarity of the prime minister’s Sunday statement, like sunlight shining through spring water in Waterford crystal!…