It’s a set list you could hardly predict. First, there’ll be a section of Islamophobic comedy. Then, says Stewart Lee, “I’m going to talk exhaustively about urine for half an hour”. Of course.
A Room with a Stew is labelled as work in progress, each block of material building towards an episode for the next series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. What Lee has got is already very progressed, however. There’s hardly a spare word as he does his usual knowing dance.
He’s part craftsman and part torturer as he reels his audience in, and out, and in again, like alternative comedy’s grumpy burlesque act, a precision tease before the punchline is delivered.
The core components of Lee’s act are well known: the knowing sneer, the wilful repetition, the stretching of the boundaries both of ideas and the conventions of comedy. What is exhilarating is how many surprises he still throws in and how deft his jumps are from one tone to another.
His first section is essentially a riff on a Daily Mail article in which Jan Moir called for comedians to joke more often about Muslims. As Lee delivers his 30-minute riposte, the impact is fiercely biting, yet he’s unafraid to also be gloriously childish, using one of his extended rants to belittle the journalist Rod Liddle as a man “with all gravy down him”, among other things.
The section about urine takes several U-turns: from a story of Lee being bullied at school to a playful deconstruction of the phrase “water off a duck’s back”. Then, just when you think Lee’s lost control, he reaches a climax in which he tackles the suicide of comedians including Robin Williams and directs his anger against the audience themselves.
Mocking observational comics, Lee concludes: “It’s not enough is it? You’ve got to have something to say.” Lee still has plenty to say and it’s invigorating to watch him say it.
General Lurko 36, Guardian.co.uk
General Lurko 36, Guardian.co.uk
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BBC iPlayer edition of discussion of Stewart Lee on A Good Read
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John Robins, Comedian