Glasgow International Comedy Festival, Stewart Lee, Citizens Theatre
*****
Marianne Gunn
16 Mar 2010

Either Stewart Lee has been having a bad year or some people have really got under his skin.

Criticising Frankie Boyle early in an over-long show, was a brave move in Glasgow, considering the former Mock the Week star is playing to a slightly larger theatre venue for the rest of the week.

Frankie’s sin, it appears, was to say that comedians should stop at 40, as after that they “lose the anger”. Boyle is 38, Stewart Lee 41. However, if Lee managed something on Monday evening, he convinced that there was fury in the old boy yet.

Being quite a meandering and sometimes painfully-self-satisfied-in-his-own-silence comic, his set opened with a coffee shop loyalty card joke that could only have been told by a middle-class, 40-something new parent living in London. Other topics of hate included the Three Bears of Top Gear and a Richard Hammond personal anecdote that turned out to be completely falsified.

Vitriol aside, there was a feigned comedic nervous breakdown to enjoy as Mr Lee (almost) bounded around the Citz, letting people in the limited view seats see more of his maddened mug.

He ended with a cider tale about plurality, featuring a Magners advert I’d never heard of. He linked that oddly to a sing-song of his favourite song Galway Girl, which he is trying to reclaim from bad memory.

If that sounds mad, that’s because it was.

Sponsored by Magners

Star rating: **

From Herald Scotsman