STEWART Lee was once voted the 41st best stand-up comedian of all time. Those of you who caught his BBC 2 Comedy Vehicle or have witnessed his infamous Princess Diana sketch will know that he is deserving of a much higher ranking, and tonight Lee won’t let you forget it.
Calculatingly assassinating any comic who stands between him and the top, no one is safe.
Lee lays his crosshairs upon Michael McIntyre and his ability to merely ‘notice things’ and make a fortune, before launching into a surreal, slow-burning and sour tirade against Russell Howard.
He pits Gary Lineker against Adrian Chiles in a ruthless yet deliciously dark comic-battle, until any wholesome impression you may have held of them is left in tatters.
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With a meticulous eye for detail, Lee relentlessly compares his own long plight as a celebrated but unknown comedian against the fortunes of those less talented, gradually picking apart the fibres of all that is wrong with modern culture.
The routine culminates in a bittersweet acoustic guitar lullaby about his hate-hate relationship with the Conservative Party.
Watching Stewart Lee perform is like watching a defeated, former-idealist gradually cave in under the weight of his own spite. The result is never anything short of magnificent.
Stewart Lee is everything a comedian shouldn’t be – awkward yet eloquent, subtle yet acerbic. It shouldn’t work, but it always does.
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BBC iPlayer edition of discussion of Stewart Lee on A Good Read
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