Why Stewart Lee is wrong about the death of the Edinburgh fringe - August 2012 The Guardian - By Charlie Wood - August 16th, 2012

Stew; “This is a rebuttal of this piece by UNDERBELLY which doesn’t really address any of the points in it, and pretends I said The Fringe was too commercial instead.“ Just before this year’s Edinburgh fringe got under way, the comedian Stewart Lee and his landlord, Tommy Sheppard of the Assembly Rooms, criticised the commercialisation…

Stewart Lee: movements afoot to return Tony Blair to Labour’s seat of power? - August 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 12th, 2012

In my shabby north London arts/media ghetto, one is never more than 6ft from a rat or six degrees of separation from a New Labour politician. Only last month, I saw shadow chancellor Ed Balls fingering a homity pie at the farmers’ market. Some friends are even acquaintances of opposition bigwigs. And some of them…

Michael McIntyre may have the millions but I have cultural capital - August 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 5th, 2012

This past week, people in Edinburgh paid £31 to see the television comedian Michael McIntyre’s warm-up shows of work-in-progress for his forthcoming stadium tour. Personally I never do warm-up shows for my own standup. My grandfather was of the opinion that you couldn’t polish a turd. He did, however, believe very strongly in lacquering them,…

The slow death of the Edinburgh Fringe - July 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - July 30th, 2012

I remember my first experience of the Edinburgh Fringe through a nostalgic haze. The Fringe was the postwar utopian ideal, but with jokes, experimental theatre and a lot of fried food; anyone could perform in it if they could raise the programme entry fee, still only a modest £246 today. Anyone might get audiences and…

How I was busted by the O—— Advertisement Enforcement Office - July 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - July 22nd, 2012

“Visiting athletes enjoying their first taste of an East End curry have just discovered a new purpose for their Olympic Rings!” That was the tweet that started it all. Fans of me and my comedy work will know I am an inescapable presence on the Twitter social networking site and have more than 900,000 followers.…

I was getting on so well with Gillian Welch. Then David Cameron butts in - February 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - February 12th, 2012

Last week, I was reading Word, the culture primer for time-poor ageing hipsters, a midlife crisis in magazine form. Apparently, in December, the Tory feminist MP Louise Mensch, (whose ill-judged jokes about Occupy protesters on a recent Have I Got News for You sank slowly and silently like quern stones dropping down a deep Cotswold…