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SNOWFLAKE/TORNADOHe clearly revels in his intellectual superiority

SNOWFLAKE TOR­NADO at De Mont­fort Hall

By Alan Thompson in Leicester Mercury Posted on Friday, February 14th, 2020

WHAT is it, I won­dered, as I scrolled through the pages of some of the most ex­co­ri­at­ing and vi­cious re­views I’ve seen, that makes any co­me­dian want to post stuff like that on their web­site?

A milder se­lec­tion in­cludes:

“A cul­tural bully from the Oxbridge Mafia who wants to ap­pear morally su­pe­rior but couldn’t cut the mustard on a panel game.”

“A sneer­ing tosser.” “Ste­wart Lee is not funny and has noth­ing to say”

At first, I was be­gin­ning to agree with a lot of them as I watched Ste­wart Lee strut (well, wad­dle) and sneer across the stage in his Snowflake Tor­nado show.

Twenty-five min­utes into the first of his two hours-plus on stage, I hadn’t laughed and the line about the first rule of com­edy – say some­thing funny – was float­ing to the sur­face of my thoughts.

Twenty-five min­utes into the first of his two hours-plus on stage, I hadn’t laughed and the line about the first rule of com­edy – say some­thing funny – was float­ing to the sur­face of my thoughts.

Then it clicked – he doesn’t give a fig what people think about him as he looks down from his lofty cere­bral crow’s nest on the in­tel­lec­tu­ally in­fe­rior plebs be­neath him.

I tried to warm to him as he lib­er­ally pep­pered his au­di­ence with ver­bal barbs when they some­times failed to laud his ge­nius with ap­plause and laugh­ter.

“I thought I’d get more laughs in a univer­sity town,” he chided.

Dubbed “the Leonard Co­hen of stand up,” he rev­els in his in­tel­lec­tual su­pe­ri­or­ity, re­gard­less of who among his au­di­ence he of­fends.

But, judg­ing by the roars of laugh­ter in the sell-out show, and re­views reg­u­larly scor­ing 4 or 5 out of 5, what do I know?

At times, as he took the au­di­ence to new and un­ex­plored places, the laugh­ter and ap­plause was more spo­radic, re­sem­bling the sound of seals be­ing fed fish.

He does ex­er­cise your brain with gags like: “A man was bit­ten by a false widow spi­der on his false leg. He was sent to a doc­tor of phi­los­o­phy who gave him anti-irony drugs.”

He does ex­er­cise your brain with gags like: “A man was bit­ten by a false widow spi­der on his false leg. He was sent to a doc­tor of phi­los­o­phy who gave him anti-irony drugs.”

Bitter barbs were aimed at (in my view com­edy su­pe­ri­ors) in­clud­ing Dave Chap­pelle, Ricky Ger­vais and Jimmy Carr – but maybe I was miss­ing the point.

“I haven’t got many friends in com­edy. I can’t go out on the town af­ter­wards in case I meet any other co­me­di­ans”. Enough said.

Written by Alan Thompson in Leicester Mercury on 14th February 2020. Filed Under: Reviews, Snowflake/Tornado
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