Stewart Lee.co.uk

×

Vegetable StewStewart Lee’s Complete Vegetable Stew

By Jack Carr in Morning Star Posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

The Complete Vegetable Stew. Royal Festival Hall 2010.

Stewart Lee’s Complete Vegetable Stew

In what seems like an act of closure on his 30 year career as it stands, Stewart Lee has crushed selected material into a three-hour evening in what could easily be termed a binge.

As usual with Lee there are many levels to this show, which describes a considered arc from some of his most accessible material, through a transition period which is neither post-modern nor archaic, and finally into a full hour of the lowest form of art – musical comedy.

By closing the show with an hour of almost unplayed guitar he manages to both validate and undermine the tiresome indulgence of the rockstar comedian persona – a mould into which he certainly doesn’t fit – a fitting move for the “London intelligentsia in the cathedral of culture.”

However, there is a parallel arc running counter to the thread of the evening, and that’s one of self-referential deconstruction, a fractalline engine which forms the conceptual centre of much of Lee’s work.

Self-aware comics always flirt with a dangerous mistress – even the most switched-on and intelligent ones – so to forge an entire evening of measured, witty and thought-provoking social comedy which encompasses three decades of work with precisely on-point unifying themes is a testament to the rare skill that Lee posseses.

Many of today’s newer comics simply don’t appreciate the history and nuance of their art as practised by prior generations. An ability to mete out vulgarity and use the odd silly word next to piece of weak observation tend to be lauded higher than the more subtle notions of social awareness, inclusivity and artistic solidity.

The timing of Lee’s “austerity binge” season is in perfect synchrony with both his career curve and the cyclic return of the Tory government, as he delicately and sharply makes clear throughout, culminating in a poetic anecdote about the Prime Minister, the “vomiting and pissing Buller boy” David Cameron.

There aren’t many words appropriate to precis the character, nature and ability of the 41st-best stand-up in Britain – Stewart Lee is the Stewart Lee of comedy.

Written by Jack Carr in Morning Star on 31st May 2011. Filed Under: Reviews, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, Vegetable Stew
Previous Press Item
Next Press Item