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Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle Series 1Stewart Lee is a condescending snob

By Roz Laws in Sunday Mercury Posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009

I’VE always thought that people from Solihull (or Silhillians, as they pretentiously call themselves) were snobs.

Now Stewart Lee proves it. The comic, who grew up in the town, decided to lay into fellow Midlander Adrian Chiles in his BBC2 Comedy Vehicle this week.

He said of The One Show (watched by considerably more people than his show, by the way): “It’s like being trapped in the buffet car of an express train with a Toby jug which has somehow learned to speak. The inexorable rise of Adrian Chiles makes me long for the days when a regional accent was a professional disadvantage.”

Ooh, how mean!

Stewart went on to have a go at almost everything on television, a medium which doesn’t meet his high standards.

Admittedly, he does have a certain way with words and some of it was quite amusing. It’s true, Andrew Lloyd Webber does look like “a monk in a wind tunnel” and it’s odd Ant and Dec don’t grow old.

But then Stewart took it too far by saying the Geordie duo are “caked in sin”. Hang on!

His whole tone is one of complete, smug condescension, all but saying “I’m so intelligent and you’re all just stupid for watching popular TV.”

Fine, we’ll just switch you off, then.

He tried to recreate Del Boy’s fall through the open bar on Only Fools And Horses, saying “how can this be the funniest thing ever on TV?”. Maybe it isn’t, Stewart, but it’s a lot funnier than you. You’re not nearly as clever as you think you are.

I realise I’m rising to the bait by complaining about him, because he wants to be controversial. This is the man who wrote Jerry Springer: The Opera, after all. But this is one vehicle that’s way off track.

Written by Roz Laws in Sunday Mercury on 29th March 2009. Filed Under: Reviews, Series 1, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle
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