R.E.M. Live - March 2008 The Sunday Times - March 16th, 2008

On the basis of their album launch show at The Royal Albert Hall, it would be hard to explain to a teenager why R.E.M. were once so important. But today, everything from Emo to Alternative Country sounds as it does because of the Athens, Georgia band’s 80’s records, and when Radiohead and Coldplay graduated from…

Ben Elton - March 2008 The Independent - March 2nd, 2008

This week, the 1980’s comedian Ben Elton told the Christian magazine Third Way that the BBC is too scared to make jokes about Islam. Apparently, Ben Elton himself even had a line about taking the mountain to Mohammed disallowed by the BBC on religious grounds. Comedy fans may find it ironic that this line vanished…

Steve Earle - February 2008 The Sunday Times - February 24th, 2008

Emerging alone beneath the vast dome of the Roundhouse in jeans and a plain green shirt, Steve Earle looks like someone who has arrived to fix a washing machine, rather than the man who reclaimed roots rock in the ‘80s and cleared the path for the Alternative Country generation. Earle’s angry 2004 album The Revolution…

Morrissey, Live - January 2008 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - January 27th, 2008

Camden’s historic counter-cultural hotbed The Roundhouse reopened in 2006, with a concrete stack of bars, holding areas and walkways appended to its tubby body, like those glaringly modern visitor centres attached to prehistoric remains at World Heritage Sites. Crossing the metal bridge from the brightly lit 21st century annexe into the darkness of the 19th…

Stewart Lee looks at the forgotten history of comedy in London - October 2007 Time Out - October 11th, 2007

I have recently been touring my new show, 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, before its current six week residency at the Soho theatre. The title reflects my position in a dubious Channel 4 rundown of stand-ups earlier this year. I was surprised to be placed at all, but the very existence of such a list does…

On Being Labelled 41st Best Standup - September 2007 Financial Times & The List - By Stewart Lee - September 9th, 2007

In March this year a cheap Channel 4 clip show, The 100 Best Stand-Up Comedians Ever, placed me at number 41, sandwiched in-between Johnny Vegas and Dara O’Brien. This was a hugely flattering position to find oneself in, if something of a tight squeeze. But unfortunately, it was a result of a public vote, and…