Watching Stewart Lee perform is akin to observing a sea squirt settling on a rock and attempting to eat itself. One of the scene’s smartest talents, Lee is back on the Fringe, gnawing away at comedy conventions. Not for him the easy laughs, Lee’s are increasingly shows of an altogether more complex persuasion.
It’s his 25th year in Edinburgh, and Lee’s feeling creatively spent, recent fatherhood and tedious drives to gigs leaving him high and dry. But this is Stewart Lee; things are seldom what they seem.
With a backdrop of rolls of carpet behind him, Lee mocks us first with some topical stand-up, from Osama Bin Laden to Andres Breivik and Jeremy Clarkson. ‘This isn’t for you,’ deadpans Lee at the Jimmy Carr fans in the audience and ‘those up the back’, before indulging in a highly amusing rant about Twitter’s ‘surveillance culture’, and his trips to a sea of ‘World of . . .’ establishments.
Just as one gag is done, Lee starts deconstructing it – ‘I mean the opposite of what I just said’ – complete with long-winded explanation.
The die-hard fans are in residence, the young man in front appearing to combust before Lee has let out a sound; elsewhere, some lame clapping hecklers enjoy short shrift.
Those unfamiliar with Lee’s donnish semantics may well miss some of the funnier observations he’s making about comedy, in this crazily weaved narrative of a show, but Lee cares not a jot as he goes hell for (the World of) leather, bringing a typically caustic end to an intentionally drawn out show
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Neolab, Guardian.co.uk
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Contrapuntal, Twitter
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BBC iPlayer edition of discussion of Stewart Lee on A Good Read
BBC iPlayer edition of discussion of Stewart Lee on A Good Read
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Cabluigi, Guardian.co.uk
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Richard Herring, Comedian
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General Lurko 36, Guardian.co.uk
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Frankie Boyle, Comedian
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Lents, redandwhitekop.com
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Anon, BBC Complaints Log
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Birmingham Sunday Mercury
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Peter Fears, Twitter