Horrible Histories? We’re living through one right now - February 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - February 9th, 2020

”Was any of the licence fee used to produce something purely designed to demean us?”, the elderly BBC journalist Andrew Neil tweeted, regarding last week’s nine-minute European-themed compilation of the delightful children’s series Horrible Histories. In these arse-tip times, the multiple-Bafta-award-winning success is “unpatriotic”, while pouring cider on a smouldering EU flag is the tits.…

Roll over Fleabag, Mrs Brown got the priest first - February 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - February 2nd, 2020

Ant and Dec had barely hosed the protective goose fat off David Walliams’s semi-aquatic body at the National Television Awards on Tuesday, before the furious Twittersphere exploded as Mrs Brown’s Boys beat both The Flea Bag and Ricky Gervais’s Afterlife for Best Comedy. Furious alt right incels, whose loyalty Gervais cultivates indiscriminately online, were outraged.…

Laurence Fox is the hero we deserve – and I have just the role for him - January 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 26th, 2020

The actor and pop singer Laurence Fox achieved peak Laurence Fox this month after explaining racism to a black female academic, photographing carrots sarcastically, doubting the existence of some Sikhs, fraternising with the Cumming-trumpets of the Today programme, and warning women under 35 of all races that he would withhold the bounty of his coveted…

Boris Johnson turns politics into a puppet show - January 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 19th, 2020

My metropolitan liberal elitist friends here in 78.5% Remain-voting Hackney do not hold BBC news in high regard, its election coverage considered biased in favour of the government and Laura Kuenssberg merely a horrid flesh trombone through which Dominic Cumming honks his reverberating falsehoods. The news seemed skewed. During the election, the prime minister declined…

Ricky Gervais and Jeremy Clarkson are no laughing matter - January 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 12th, 2020

Last week, in a much-needed and well-timed satire of snowflake hand-wringing over the Australian bush fires, the Sun’s politically incorrect columnist Jeremy Clarkson declared the continent unfit for human habitation and welcomed scorched whiteys back to the motherland, unaccompanied minors and all. The inevitable complaints will have already been offset by Sun accountants against the…

I’m seeing stars… but thanks to Elon Musk, not for much longer - January 2020 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 5th, 2020

My best New Year’s Eve was 15 years ago. A mis-calibrated dose of prescription painkillers in a bed and breakfast near Wootton Courtenay meant I slept through the whole thing. I slept through the fear. I slept through the dread. I slept through the recriminations and regrets. And I slept through Jools Holland insisting on…