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Vegetable StewStewart Lee – The Complete Vegetable Stew.

By Ash in Art in Asheq.co.uk Posted on Saturday, May 28th, 2011

There’s no doubt that my favourite, living British comedian is Stewart Lee. Last night, he played to almost 2,200 people at the Royal Festival Hall. Having seen Lee a few times now, this was easily the largest crowd I’ve seen him perform to. Introduced by Armando Iannucci, The Complete Vegetable Stew lasted 3hrs 45mins (including three 10 minute breaks). Though a lot of the material was recently visible on the tellybox since he got his show, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, anyone that had seen him live over the past two years would have been familiar with most of the content.

Surprises were supplied in the form of improvised gags – his own alarm clock unexpectedly sounding near the start providing the first distraction. Like many of Lee’s shows, it was difficult to gauge the audience’s reaction. With few walk-outs, most people near me were either in hysterics, silent or busy getting pissed on the cans of beer they’d smuggled in. The dreadlocked hippie in front of me kept falling asleep during the first hour.

For me, it was a solid performance, with his truest, most honest form coming towards the end as he took arms against David Cameron and The Bullingdon Club. It is these areas where he comes closest to simultaneously uniting and dividing the audience. It would be better to see more of this in Lee’s future shows. The more acerbic material reminds me of ’90s Comedian and – like delivering his ‘Braveheart the paedophile’ gag in Scotland – I think Lee can afford to alienate his audience (and Guardian readers) further than being ironically pro-IRA.

Though I would very much favour that sort of anarchic behaviour, it probably wouldn’t benefit Lee’s bank balance and celebrity. But does that really matter to Lee? He’s unlikely to go on a sell out run of the O2 Arena. Even with two TV series under his belt, Lee finds himself in the curious position of being just where he wants yet also being on the fringe of becoming the type of mainstream comic he ridicules. No doubt he is aware of that, and even went on to claim that he was under no illusion that playing the Royal Festival Hall represented some kind of glass ceiling in his career.

His new show will be run in this summer and will feature at the Soho Theatre in the winter. By then, I suppose we’ll see what decision he’s made.

Written by Ash in Art in Asheq.co.uk on 28th May 2011. Filed Under: Reviews, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, Vegetable Stew
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