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A Room With A StewA Room With A Stew Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds

By Melissa Taylor in InSuffolk.com Posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

If you couldn’t make it to A Room With a Stew at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds on Tuesday evening, you unfortunately missed a brilliant night’s comedy in one of Suffolk’s cosiest venues.

Don’t feel too disheartened, though. Stewart Lee is using this tour to create new material for his upcoming series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, so you’ll get to see a developed version of the show later this year.

This is the second time Stewart Lee has performed at Bury’s Theatre Royal, and he uses this to great advantage. He played a benefit at the theatre Royal to fund its restoration back in 2005, and makes constant references to the ‘good old days’ of the theatre. He says he preferred the theatre before its restoration, and doesn’t appreciate people bringing friends who haven’t heard of him. He ribs anyone sitting in the upper circles for being an arrogant snob. Take this with a pinch of salt. Despite his grumpy old man persona, Stewart Lee is almost certainly a big softie.

Although many comedians give the seemingly obligatory ‘shout out’ to wherever they’re performing, Stewart Lee is one who’s actually done his research. He knows all about St Edmund, and the wolves that ate his head. The village of Hoxne and the Eastern Angles Theatre Company also receive a special mention (although he suspects Hoxne is full of UKIP supporters – not sure why).

Since A Room With A Stew is, by Stewart Lee’s own admission, a work in progress for his new TV series, the structure is quite loose. He starts by outlining his set, but swaps things around depending on how the performance is going. However, at no point does he seem woolly or unprepared. If he didn’t tell the audience when he thought things weren’t going so well, they wouldn’t have a clue. Like many great minds, Stewart Lee is his own worst critic.

As ever, Stewart Lee’s comedy remains deeply political. He may not be happy with the outcome of May’s General Election, but it has certainly inspired some witty material. His fans will be unsurprised that ‘Paul Nuttall of the UKIPs’ features very heavily. Nor that Islamophobia, Britain First, and the class system all receive a heavy bashing. Nobody could have predicted the twenty minutes he did on urine, though.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Stewart Lee gig without his trademark ‘repeating the same thing over and over again until you’re not sure whether it’s awkward or funny’. It’s both awkward and funny. The new series of Comedy Vehicle can’t come soon enough.

Written by Melissa Taylor in InSuffolk.com on 19th May 2015. Filed Under: A Room With A Stew, Reviews, Series 4, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle
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