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Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle Series 3Review: Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle

By Lewis Dunn in The Yorker Posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2014

Stewart Lee has won a BAFTA. Not just one for his show, but he himself has also won a BAFTA. He is, according to BAFTA, the Best Male Television Comic. He won that, and unless they can revoke BAFTAs, like they revoked knighthoods to Fred Goodwin, he will always have it.

He’s the Best Male Television Comic. He’s not the funniest, or the smartest, or any single measurement of a man, he’s the best.

If I turn on my TV and Stewart Lee isn’t on it then it’ll be rubbish, according to BAFTA. He’s the best at it, no point in arguing with that, the best. Objectively.

So to make sure it keeps up with its promise of educating, entertaining and informing, the BBC commissioned another series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. It’s the third time they’ve given him a series, and each time the format has changed. The first series was about 20 minutes of stand up with 10 minutes of cut away sketches peppered throughout, whereas the second removed the litany of sketches and instead had the brilliantly funny Armando Iannucci OBE ask Lee questions as to why he bothers with his show.
This third series has Chris Morris instead. He doesn’t have an OBE, but he does also have a BAFTA. If you’re counting the show now has 3 BAFTAs.

Stewart Lee does stand up comedy slowly. Everything he says is designed to ramp up tension. He’ll repeat himself a lot, a technique dubbed his “rule of 10”, something he openly makes fun of in the first episode of his show; his BAFTA winning show. It’s very effective, and even though there’s constant reference to how the show is formulaic Lee pulls back the curtain on that formula to laugh at it with us. It’s undeniable that if you like Lee’s style this will still be of the BAFTA quality you’ve come to expect.
There’s nothing especially dynamic or unique to the format, it’s just Lee talking at lots of people and then later with just one. At the end there’s a sort of sketch that references previous jokes. They can be a bit arty and surreal but they’re only 2 minutes. Not much happens besides that really. I think Lee likes it that way though; it won him a BAFTA after all.

The main reason people enjoy Stewart Lee is, I think, because he isn’t there to get a laugh no matter what. He wants a certain type of laugh, for you to engage with his jokes not just because they’re funny, but also because they inspire laughter more to do with despair and disbelief than because of shock or surprise.
In about half an hour Lee will make his audience laugh around 20 or 30 times. That might not be as many times as Milton Jones can make people laugh in that time, but it’s a more thoughtful series of jokes.
They’re about existential crisis, racism, tedium and greed. The punch lines are often a dismissal of some dreadful revelation, and the overriding feeling with the series is one of inescapable despair. Hilarious, BAFTA winning despair.

They’re going to need to give him another BAFTA for this one.

Written by Lewis Dunn in The Yorker on 6th April 2014. Filed Under: Reviews, Series 3, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle
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