Stewart Lee.co.uk

×

Other / Miscellaneous PressHere’s some canny proof that you can’t always trust what you hear

Radio's intimacy lures you in but can it be trusted? Comedian Stewart Lee considered the faith we put in narrative voices for Archive on 4

By TRISTRAM FANE SAUNDERS in The Telegraph Posted on Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

That presenter was the comedian Stewart Lee, whose recent tribute to punk singer Robert Lloyd, King Rocker, has, so far, been one of this year’s most entertaining films. Radio 4 should use him more, pronto.

“Chroniclers have been lying to us since the first troglodyte daubed an exaggerated bison on a French cave wall,” he deadpanned. As a documentarian, Lee shares much with Jonathan Meades: a truculent contrarianism, a deep hinterland of high and pop culture, and an eye for the oddest bits of the British psyche.

His tour of untrustworthy voices began with the book that made King Arthur famous: The History of the Kings of Britain, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey was “a bit of a leg-puller,” admitted a British Library academic. Lee quoted the words of William of Newburgh, who in 1190 put it less politely: “Everything this man said was made up […] either from an inordinate love of lying, or for the sake of pleasing the Britons.” Cue embarrassed laughter in the hushed and “lie-packed” British Library vaults.

There followed a web of false endings, red herrings and uncanny impressions (was that really Iggy Pop reading Edgar Allan Poe?). Keen-eared listeners may have noticed that the song used to introduce a segment on Bob Dylan’s untruths was actually by forgotten Sixties psych rock band Mouse and the Traps, who found brief success by copying his style. Even the picture of Lee advertising this show on the BBC Sounds app wasn’t of Lee, but of lookalike Terry Christian.

Yes, it was all too clever by three-quarters. But what gave it depth was a palpable love of the sometimes recondite material chewed over by Lee and his interviewees. Poet Rob Auton offered a sweet tribute to Ivor Cutler’s writing, explaining why he felt close to the Scottish eccentric: “My imagination is one of my best friends, and it’s like he’s friends with it as well.”

Lee spoke to the reclusive satirist Chris Morris about how algorithms are skewing our sense of reality. It prompted a final dramatic reveal: by doctoring Wikipedia pages that he knew Lee would visit, Morris had essentially been this programme’s shadowy puppet-master, spoon-feeding the hapless presenter his own alternative facts. (Or had he?)

Written by TRISTRAM FANE SAUNDERS in The Telegraph on 16th June 2021. Filed Under: Radio, Radio Documentary, Reviews
Previous Press Item
Next Press Item
Stewart Lee