PARAMOUNT WEBSITE

Stewart Lee - 90s Comedian at The Edinburgh Festival 2005

The past twelve months have been, shall we say, rather turbulent for Mr. Lee. Riding high on a wave of critical and popular acclaim for his controversial musical Jerry Springer: The Opera, he became engulfed by a mega tsunami of opposition from the rather more reactionary Christian right that nearly drowned him. Before you stop reading on account of that quite horrible use of metaphor, let me explain. When the BBC made the decision to show a televised version of the show a 600,000 strong hate campaign rose up, demanding that among others, Lee was to be brought down on charges of blasphemy. Every day he received dozens of emails, ranging from cheap insults to very menacing threats. It was then that Lee went through a period of insular retrospective and, by his own admission, heavy drinking. Huge success, it seemed, came with a huge price.

It is chiefly this that drives his new show, the excellent 90s Comedian. This hour-long set is a typically erudite, scathing and hilarious rant that you'd expect from the man who made his name in the early 90s as one half of the alternative double act Lee and Herring alongside Richard Herring. Together, their TV and radio programmes Fist Of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy made them a cult hit with students, much like The Mary Whitehouse Experience did for Rob Newman and David Baddiel. It certainly didn't hinder his popularity amongst the student population that Lee used to strike many similarities with Morrissey, even going as far as appearing to buy his wardrobe from the same Oxfam as the former Smiths frontman and sporting and equally magnificent coquettish quiff.

Now, over a decade later, he still has the same haircut, and has, rather spookily, filled out in exactly the same way as Morrissey had when he made his come back last year! For Lee's return to the stage, he has taken this opportunity to craft more of a therapy session than a stand up act. Throughout his set he takes us into the darkest regions of his mind (and when I say dark, I mean really, really dark - this show ain't for the queasy) on an introspective journey, as he purges his soul from the demons that have been tugging on his quiff over the past twelve months. He also lays into Joe Pasquale.

And that's the key to what makes 90s Comedian such a solid and brilliant show. Lee cleverly interweaves poignant and frank observations about the more serious things in life - terrorism, self doubt and depression - with lashings of childlike vitriol against the more trivial matters, like the collective works of Dan Brown and joke theft at the hands of Joe Pasquale. Throughout his set he reminds us why he is the master of slow, sarcastic delivery, able to break a sentence up with log pauses, drawing huge laughs from each couple of words that he has chosen with almost clinical precision. It is during the last half hour that things turn black as the night, as Lee recounts a bleak shaggy dog story based around the time just after the hate campaign emerged against Jerry Springer, when he was staying with his mum in Worcester and drinking heavily. It would be a crime to explain this any further, but let's just say the he takes the audience to places they may not want to go, while at the same time ensuring that they are hanging on his every word!

Definitely one of the highlights of the festival so far, 90s Comedian is a must for anyone who likes their comedy topical, clever, dark and above all very funny indeed, which is no bad thing in anyone's book. Especially if you don't like Joe Pasquale.