How I Escaped My Certain Fate (The Life & Deaths Of A Standup Comedian) - October 2018 October 30th, 2018

Experience how it feels to be the subject of a blasphemy prosecution! Find out why ‘wool’ is a funny word! See how jokes work, their inner mechanisms revealed, before your astonished face! In 2001, after over a decade in the business, Stewart Lee quit stand-up, disillusioned and drained, and went off to direct a loss-making…

Comedy Has Issues - December 2017 The University of Chicago Press - By Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai - December 1st, 2017

Permanent Carnival Comedy’s pleasure comes in part from its ability to dispel anxiety, as so many of its theoreticians have noted, but it doesn’t simply do that.1 As both an aesthetic mode and a form of life, its action just as likely produces anxiety: risking transgression, flirting with displeasure, or just confusing things in a…

Stand Up Comedian - January 2017 January 21st, 2017

My first DVD, a recording of the 2004 Edinburgh show, “Standup Comedian”. Recorded at The Stand in Glasgow in March 2005 & released by 2Entertain in October of that year. Within days of release, despite superb reviews, 2entertain decline their option to do a second one.

Standup Comedian ★★★★ - October 2005 The Times - October 22nd, 2005

Standup Comedian ★★★★ - October 2005 Nuts Magazine - October 18th, 2005

Standup Comedian DVD - October 2005 The Evening Standard - October 1st, 2005

Stewart Lee: Stand-Up Comedian (BBC/Avalon, £19.99, cert 15) After a decade of obscurity, Stewart Lee’s profile was boosted thanks to Jerry Springer: The Opera, which he co-wrote. And his 2004 Edinburgh show was one of the best in memory. The topics – 9/11, flatulence,celebrity culture – might be familiar but Lee’s restrained performance is masterful.