I’ve had it with comedy awards – and so has my bounty hunter alter ego - December 2014 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - December 21st, 2014

I am a standup comedian. Last Tuesday, I attended the British comedy awards, my first since 1991. Today an edited Channel 4 highlights package from a Wembley warehouse, back in ’91, in their second year, the awards were a primetime ITV Saturday-night live spectacular in a big South Bank studio. I wrote for Radio 4’s…

Want to know what’s really killing Christmas? Just ask Ben Stiller… - December 2014 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - December 14th, 2014

Every year since I can remember, it seems something has been killing Christmas: commercialism; multiculturalism; secularism; or that political correctness of the “gone mad” variety that they have now. This is not a new idea. An ancient cave daub, dating from 10,000 BC, on the walls of the Grotte de Niaux in southern France, appears…

The Imaginary Liberal Comedy Cabal will crush the Ukips into dust - November 2014 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - November 5th, 2014

The Imaginary Comedy Cabal? Frankie Boyle, Mock the Week’s Russell Howard, Dara O’Briain, Hugh Dennis and Andy Parsons, and Stewart Lee. Photograph: guardian Last Saturday, I took my children on a tour of the Freemasons’ Hall in Covent Garden. I explained to them that they were going to visit the magical headquarters of an ancient…

It seems Russell Brand has more in common with Jesus than you’d think - October 2014 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 19th, 2014

Last week, at the age of 46, I moved with my family into a home, with a garden and a garage, in the Shropshire countryside. I feel guilty about my privilege, but not as guilty as Russell Brand does about his, which makes me a worse person, I think. In one of the extracts from…

The search for the nation’s identity: my part in Cameron’s odyssey - June 2014 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - June 15th, 2014

On Wednesday evening a high-level spook I had known vaguely at Oxford, a former Etonian and a Bullingdon Club chum of David Cameron’s, rang me up with interesting findings and a resistible offer. “You’ve been following this Birmingham schools thing, Lee?” “Yes,” I replied. “It’s outrageous. No child should have to go to school in…

Sex and drugs? Real rock rebels are into tax-efficient accountancy abuse - May 2014 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - May 18th, 2014

Last week it was confirmed that Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard “the duck” Donald, the key talents of legendary rock’n’rollers Take That, hid £63m in the Icebreaker tax avoidance scheme. Barlow’s crime may cause short-lived shame, but it could guarantee the Take That frontispiece an eternal place in the rock’n’roll annals that his music…