After a successful return to the UK’s TV screens earlier this year with his BBC show Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, our titular hero is embarking on a full tour. Who’s Laughing Now had a chat with to delve beneath the literate stand-up’s exterior and find out what to expect on his current jaunt, which stops off at Warwick Arts Centre on Friday October 23rd.

WLN: The show you’re currently touring is called If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One. What’s the essence of the show and how would you describe it for someone who isn’t familiar with your stand-up?

Stewart Lee: Well, you have to decide what an August Edinburgh show is called by April for the programme, and I was desperate. Then one day I was in a Caffe Nero and they rejected my loyalty card for some reason and I saw it said ‘if you prefer a milder coffee please ask for one’ on the back. I was already thinking about writing something about the incident so it seemed to suggest a design and concept for the show.

As it happened, the meaning of the show changed. Being annoyed about a coffee loyalty card is a waste of time really, so what should a 40+ comedian in the age of outrageous offensive comedy be annoyed about? Top Gear’s grouchy middle-aged maleness is presumably aimed at me, but leaves me cold. What do I care about? Am I angry or just disappointed? That’s what the show’s about.

But on top of all that this material is filtered through a formal experimentation with the idiom of stand-up, stretching time, patience tone etc which viewers of the TV show will be familiar with.

WLN: How would you describe your relationship with fans? You put a lot of material on your website for download, with MP3s of radio appearances and links to videos from your TV shows. Is that a conscious decision to continue to give ‘value’ to the people who are interested in your comedy and attend your shows?

SL: It’s mainly so people don’t have to buy it off my old management Avalon, who did really terrible deals with their own clients for productions they made where the buy-outs mean we get nothing when they put the material up on iTunes.

WLN: You’ve done a series of DVD and CD releases with Go Faster Stripe. What is it about their DIY aesthetic which made you want to get involved with them, especially with their first release?

SL: Well, according to my management, back in 2005, no-one wanted to put out anything I was doing, although I suspect Avalon may have been trying to drive up my market value by witholding me from sale without my knowledge. This Cardiff guy Chris Evans was a comedy fan who ran a kids’ clothing company on the net and heard no-one wanted to film 90s Comedian so he set up a company to do it, for £58,000 less than my previous DVD cost to film and we split the profits, meaning I make more by selling GFS stuff out of a box after gigs than I do from anything of mine that is in the shops.

WLN: For your Comedy Vehicle series you recorded some interviews with Armando Iannucci for the red button extras. How did the idea for those initially come about? They looked like they were a lot of fun to make, as well as being fun to watch.

SL: I can’t remember whose idea it was. Arm turned up and I had told him to give me a hard time, as if he hated me, and the whole thing was improvised.

WLN: What place do you think there is for satire or thought-provoking comedy in a society where sections of the public are offended by things which don’t reflect their own beliefs or values?

SL: Well, it’s essential. Absolutist ideas have to be questioned, even things you believe in. A priest I very much admired once said to me, ‘There is no faith without doubt.’

WLN: Which other comedians do you like or feel an affinity with, in terms of their style or approach to comedy?

SL: Kevin Macalleer, Simon Munnery, Harry Hill, Mike Wilmot, Boothby Graffoe, Jerry Sadowitz, Arnold Brown, Hans Teeuwen, Daniel Kitson and er…Lenny Bruce.

WLN: I believe you’re also a big music fan. What records have you been listening to the most recently?

SL: Richard Youngs’ Under Stellar Stream
Magic Christian – Evolver
Son Volt – American Central Dust
Green Pajamas – Poison In The Russian Room
Starless and Bible Black – Shape Of The Shape
And lots by the improv guitarist Derek Bailey as I am about to ‘do’ him on celebrity Mastermind.

WLN: What’s your favourite lie or inaccuracy that’s ever been said/written about you?

SL: A Daily Mail piece saying I wanted to kill Richard Hammond, and pretty much everything that was said about Jerry Springer The Opera.

WLN: What does your average day entail? What are the best and worst aspects of a life in comedy?

SL: Wake up 6.30 with my son, who is 2 & 1/2. Decide who is doing his breakfast. Try and deal with bills and correspondence in a cellar with no phone or email or mobile signal. Try and write. Do gig.

WLN: What kind of things typically inspire you when you’re writing or searching for ideas?

SL: Everything and nothing. Today I found it very funny that Damon Albarn is to be put in charge of the cultural side of the 2012 Olympics and think this may be the basis of my 2010 stand-up show.

WLN: Can you tell me one thing about yourself that most people won’t alread know?

SL: I am a member of the Friends Of Arthur Machen Society.

WLN: Who or what during your childhood most influenced where you are today?

SL: Age 7 + Marvel comics, esp Spider-man. With great power comes great responsibility.
Age 10 + the writer Ray Bradbury
Age 11 + my English teacher Bob Melhuish
Age 12+ The band The Fall
Age 15 + Samuel Beckett
Age 16 + Ted Chippington the stand-up comedian

WLN: What’s your favourite city that you’ve ever visited, either professionally or as a tourist?

SL: Florence.

WLN: What’s the best piece of advice anyone’s ever given you?

SL: Probably the above – without doubt there is not faith; the Rev Peter Wrenn.

WLN: What are you working on at the moment?

SL: A book about stand-up called How I Escaped My Certain Fate.

Book tickets for Stewart Lee’s show at Warwick Arts Centre by clicking here.