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41st Best Standup Ever!41st Best Standup Ever!

NG Magazine, Nottingham - Review: Kat Hall" target="_blank">NG Magazine Posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

A bustle of anticipation breathes through the play house as we wait for Stuart Lee’s arrival. It’s one of those rare occasions where anyone who has seen and enjoyed his show before knows full well they won’t be disappointed. Originality and invective are a guarantee. However, this seems to be a fact little appreciated, demonstrated by the flanks of empty chairs to our left and right.

Nevertheless, when he appears applause and cheers erupt throughout the room and for a moment it feels like a full house gig. That is until Lee makes several jokes about how the title of the show Stuart Lee: 41st best comedian was meant to lure people in, something, he comments, which obviously worked like a dream here in Nottingham.

The title of the show, he explains, is from one of the endless Channel Four ‘list’ programmes, The 100 Best Stand-Up Acts Ever: “a tedious count-down concept, where, for a fee, Stuart Maconie can recall any aspect of human experience”. It is obvious that the name of the gig is meant to be ironic, and the ‘bitter’ parts of the routine work really well with the lack of turn-out tonight. At one point Lee drops his microphone and starts wandering in between the vacant seats ranting: “You’re probably wondering whether this is innovation or a mistake.”

Absurd rambling stories about him dressing-up as a giant insect to do observational comedy as a grasshopper, for an insect conference named ‘Pestival’, contrast with satirical pieces about Carphone Warehouse pulling their sponsorship from 2007’s Celebrity Big Brother due to racism being at odds with their values: “I had previously suspected they were in fact a front for a white supremacist group using the unusual method of selling phones to disseminate their ideology.”

There was not one boring moment in Stuart Lee’s hour-and-a-half-long performance. He is not a one-liner man, but a comedian who crafts clever surreal and political comedy using drawn-out narratives. However, I was left with a feeling of genuine despair at the human race. I mean, there is something very disturbing about people’s comedic taste when Jim Davidson can pack-out venues ten-times bigger than this…

NG Magazine on 22nd March 2008. Filed Under: 41st Best Standup Ever!, Reviews
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