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Carpet Remnant WorldCarpet Remnant World. Assembly Rooms ★★★★

By Ian Armstrong in Hairline Magazine Posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2012

“By the time a comic is playing a room this big he’s creatively redundant,” sighs Stewart Lee.

After years of playing The Stand, two successful series of BBC2’s ‘Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle’ have provoked a new venue for his 25th Fringe show – the bright lights of the newly opened Assembly Rooms.

The first half of his set is typical in its self-referential nature, deconstructing his comedic style and resulting audience reaction with merciless intelligence. As some fail to pick up on the nuances of his opening salvo (the familiar targets of mainstream comedy, Jeremy Clarkson and the right-wing press are suitably obliterated this evening) he pauses and warns the audience: “At least half of you are going to have to raise your game.”

Lee moves on to lament his efforts to find routines while driving around motorways looking at shops, brilliantly stringing out jokes about an Office World employee whose physiological make-up is comprised entirely of stationary (treasury tag DNA clearly more favourable to Lee than the “obvious” pencil sharpener anus) for longer than they should be funny.

As he descends deeper into “the low status character I’m playing this year” some will wonder what to make of his tale of “the gulf between what we are and what we aspire to be” but willing citizens of his Carpet Remnant World know that by constantly pushing boundaries and working effortlessly on more levels than most comedians can even hope to comprehend, Lee is more relevant now than ever.

Written by Ian Armstrong in Hairline Magazine on 11th August 2012. Filed Under: Carpet Remnant World, Reviews
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