We now almost take it for granted that the world has gone, for the moment at least, absolutely fucking insane. How do you even begin to do comedy in that world? How do you do comedy in that world when you’re a middle-aged woke comedian from North London who’s been doing this shit for decades now? Stewart Lee wants to know the answer to this question.

But first things first. There is a dance that Lee does in his shows now, which seems to have started post-pandemic, and probably tells us more about changing standards of audience etiquette than anything else. There’s a brief and sort of informal warm-up to start the show, which is talk about what’s going to happen — mostly to cover up for any latecomers wandering in, usually accompanied by “Stewart Lee”¹ loudly complaining about them spoiling the momentum, having a lack of sophistication, how they just don’t get it, and how they should try harder to keep up. Actually tonight, this appears to be given slightly more (performed, not real) edge, possibly because of the subject matter. But bizarrely, around 10 minutes in, a couple nearer the front get up, and quietly walk out. This does come as a surprise, but he does milk it nicely. Towards the end we find out there’s a reason, but that is for later.

After the prelims, the show proper starts. As becomes clear, there are three parts: the first half, and then a split second.

The first part is designed to, as he ways, “get the 6 topical gags out of the way” (they’re good ones). But this bit is causing him some pain, because the pace of events is making some of the jokes seem a bit far-fetched even as he writes and tells them. Case in point: he had some Elon Musk gags in a show at the start of the year, only to discover after coming off stage that the melty-faced GrokSlop mogul and shit-stirrer had done two fascisms² in one night. How do you write jokes about that, he muses? How do you keep up with that level of mad? That’s not the only point of course; he’s also setting up callbacks. Even this is causing problems he couldn’t have foreseen: “At the start of this tour, I didn’t know what was going to happen with Gregg Wallace …”. But he does manage to get some well-aimed jibes at Gervais and Russell Brand, because that leads into the main point, about the style of comedy that is becoming increasingly visible on the streaming platforms, “The Netflix comics”, who are quite happy to play at edgy and pocket the cash. What is interesting though is that he isn’t critiquing comics like Carr and Dave Chappelle, for example, for being technically bad (he explicitly says otherwise). He’s asking about whether the material they’re delivering is helpful, or healthy as part of modern culture. He muses about a sense of responsibility, and wonders whether sometimes we would all like to forget about that and just do and say what we want, without thought for consequence. It’s a natural impulse, but is that abrogation of responsibility (perfrmative, or otherwise) by those with such exposure doing damging things to the culture?

He frames this by talking about an art show he recently attended, because he was asked to deliver a talk about Ithell Colquhoun, an artist for whom he has a great deal of time. So, there he is, surrounded on the one hand by Shoreditch twats, and on the other by art collector twats, He ends up sitting next to a model, and talks about their conversation, which is hugely focused on instagram photos of a restaurant opening in Copenhagen, and questions like “where are you on your food journey?”³. For him, it was clearly not an edifying evening, but he will return to it later. There’s a side conversation there about his appearance on Celebrity Mastermind answering questions about jazz musician Derek Bailey, and the fact that he was playing against John Thomson, whose subject was Bond movies⁴. All of this is done perched on a stool, with what he calls his “Dave Allen” lighting. But by this point, the first half was drawing to a close, finally ending in a hail of noise and lights, as a terrible transformation is about to take place…

And if nothing else it’s time for the tech team to have fun with the smoke machine and the lights. And a very big prop callback to Gregg Wallace, with his head like a massive moon. But not on a stick. If you’ve ever watched a Netflix comedy special, you’ll have a sound idea of whats coming next, though I find myself thinking of Jim Jeffries a lot here, with the voice Columbo gargling battery acid. Dressed as a furry, or the Honey Monster gone reeeeeal baaaad. he runs through the typical tempate edgelord comedy routine with all the usual targets, “ya know who I hate…?”. But then there’s another transition [cue fx], and suddenly we have a man in a furry suit asking if he’s said anything embarrassing.

At this point, we get the switch into stereotypically ‘woke’⁵ material using the same style of delivery. To finish this off, he does this by going back to the stool, only this time in his costume (sans headdress, which has not been discarded). Or rather, he tries to. Like the extended ‘Ricky Gervais Says the Unsayable’ riff from last tour, he has a little interlude of physical comedy, grappling with the stool and the mic stand. The trick of using more reactionary/trad stylings to deliver different styles of content is nothing new of course, because I used to love John Thomson (I wonder if mentioning him was an acknowledgment of some sort) doing Bernard Right-on routines in the 90s.

Finally, and … lets say .. not entirely gracefully … he removes the costume, and we get him in his boxer shorts, with an acoustic guitar, He uses this to perform a Dylaneseque ballad in three stanzas (60’s Bob, 80s Bob, and current Bob), telling the art show story from another point of view. The Dylan impersonations are disturbingly better than you might think. Especially the modern one.

And the couple who walked out? Well, during the wrap-up and conclusion Stew lets us know that he was told during the interval that they had booked to see the Downton Abbey movie (which was apparently showing in the cinema). How did it take them nearly fifteen minutes to work out that they were not going to be watching a reconstructed relic of a bygone age? Make up your own jokes here. Still, this all seemed to tickle him when he was telling us this at the end, when he seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. I hope so, because I certainly did.

Side note: also spotted, Athletico Mince’s very own Andy Dawson in the bar afterwards having enjoyed the evening’s entertainment.

¹ If you’ve ever watched Stewart Lee, you’ll know how this works, and how the Stewart Lee on stage is a performed bitterer, more hectoring version of himself. I do wonder if there were ever a Stewart Lee lookalike competition, where he’d actually place. Though he might do better if you’re looking for Morrissey, Ali Campbell, or even Mark Kermode
² Remember? The two “No, no never, not Nazi. not me squire” salutes? Doesn’t that seem like forever ago now? It’s only 8 months.
³ About a third of the way through my intestinal tract right now, thanks.
⁴ “What colour was Blofeld’s cat?”
⁵ As its accusers and critics might call it.