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90s Comedian90s Comedian ★★★★★

By Leo Benedictus in The Guardian Posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2005

In drainpipe jeans and common-sense shirt, Stewart Lee runs up the aisle to the stage and draws a chalk circle around the microphone.

This, he explains, is what medieval clowns used to do outside churches in order to protect themselves from being persecuted for heresy.

He is going to need it.

In the past year, Lee has been the subject of death threats, blasphemy prosecutions and an endoscopy, following the explosion of outrage that met the showing of Jerry Springer: The Opera on television. And yet his response is now to blaspheme further and fiercer than ever before, delivered with his usual deadpan seriousness. One phrase in particular, about one of the Lord’s orifices, will be repeated for days by everyone who heard it.

While the room laughed about as much as is possible, it is Lee’s subtlety and intelligence that make his act exceptional. He does very little – no silly voices, no props, no gurning, no sound effects.

But he is so sure of his grip on the crowd, which at times was close to hypnotic, that he can stop halfway through a joke to await the doubled wave of laughter that will come when the audience work out the punchline for themselves.

This technique doesn’t always work, he explains, as 200-odd people dab the tears from their eyes. In western Australia, he found that everybody waited politely for him to finish the joke. “But there, they don’t go to stand-up comedy to have a laugh. It’s more a way of getting access to news.”

A perfect hour.

Written by Leo Benedictus in The Guardian on 13th August 2005. Filed Under: 90s Comedian, Reviews
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