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A Room With A StewStewart Lee lands killer comic punches

By Corrie Bond-French in Gloucester Citizen Posted on Monday, March 9th, 2015

STEWART Lee can wrong-foot an audience faster than most people can say “white supremacist theme park”.

Which was the description of Cheltenham he decided to goad us with in his intro.

Given that he was promising a three-parter divided into the subject matters of Islamaphobia, urine and UKIP, it went down well. As did his berating of the latecomers shuffling in midway through his jibes at reviewers, namely Rod Liddle and his smeared on suet and Angel Delight.

But all’s well that ends well, eh? Stewart got to revive a longer list of smeary foodstuff for Rod, and the audience. Well, it’s always nice to see a collective approach to self-flagellation at a comedy gig. And the town hall was packed to capacity.

The Room with a Stew tour is a work in progress in preparation for his TV show, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle.

Stewart’s stage act is a conflictive mass of deconstructed and convoluted back-handed comedy. He spares no one as he launches his tirades against the ills of society, then he peppers it with audience-baiting and spoiler ploys, playing the long game and leading you astray, before pouncing back with a killer punch.

But all of this rapid-fire eloquence and irony is still surprising and clever, and there’s no denying his intelligentsia appeal. This is the razor-sharp onion unpeeling type of wit that makes you feel a tad intellectually superior, albeit for just a couple of hours. Lee Mack or Michael McIntyre it ain’t.

Stewart is a comedic craftsman; taking us one way then haranguing us for going there. It’s all finely honed, even though it’s a work in progress, and you have to involve yourself and invest in it. But then, let’s face it, Stewart has got form, and his precision planning is second to none

And it is an act: the misanthrope who is continually challenged by society and commercialism, to the point where he uses his negative reviews as advertising on his tour posters. It is this ability to subvert the very notion of his own popularity that is his own grist to the mill.

Stewart is an acquired taste, but for all of his diatribes and reprimands, he is evidently amusing himself too. And he eschews any pretentious showy palaver.

He just gets on stage, gives you a run-through, performs and exits stage left. A bit like wash and go shampoo but without the froth and more of a sting in the eye.

I’m not ashamed to admit I cried with laughter. Fairy hats in the fuchsia and a peckish fox can do that to a girl.

Written by Corrie Bond-French in Gloucester Citizen on 9th March 2015. Filed Under: A Room With A Stew, Reviews, Series 4, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle
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