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Vegetable StewVegetable Stew, Brighton Dome ★★★★

By Victoria Nangle in The Latest 7 Posted on Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Stewart Lee is touring the country, trying out material for his new TV series that will go out next year. This show, a part of that tour, was no new gags night but a carefully structured set, which he characteristically outlined from the off as being on three topics: charity, Adrian Chiles and politics. Although, he pointed out, the material on Adrian Chiles will not be seen on television due to the recently announced rules of the BBC barring attacks on individuals. So that was a one-off just for us…

Lee’s vitriol is always appreciated, and Chiles wasn’t the only one under attack. There was a fantastic story about our Prime Minister in his youth, framed in a not dissimilar way to Lee’s considering of Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond last year. This provided a wonderful pay-off for all and a nostalgic reward for stalwart Stew fans.

A delightful trip between grandad stories, charity boasts, Japanese monsters and a celebration of crisps – this was hardly a single topic, and more a fantastic Walter Mitty tale, suspending our disbelief seamlessly sashaying around its broad title, picking up further laughs along the way. Lee’s storytelling and considerations kept his audience rapt, trusting from experience that each lengthy set-up would hit pay dirt. They did.

Throughout the show Lee deconstructed his comedy. Of particular fun were the elements when he addressed critics’ claims that he doesn’t tell jokes, and when he used his supposed librarian past to deliberately heavy-handedly parallel his present. His mocking recognition of critics’ problems with his style of comedy and delivery falls on home ground ears, as an audience already attuned laughs with him at them.

To write plainly, he went down a storm. Stewart Lee is an ever evolving comic, keeping himself and his fans forever on the move, avoiding the stale. His active mind is what attracts his audience and he gives the impression of amusing himself as much as anyone else staring up at him on the stage.

The closest to any personal material he included in the show was in the ‘politics’ section. He remembered stand up in the late ‘80s, when he first started out, and the ‘alternative’ brand comics were claiming. He still is an alternative to the main throng of comics; you’re hardly likely to find him closing Krater on a Friday night. But he’s filling up the Brighton Dome Concert Hall, implying that this ‘alternative’ too is gaining greater momentum.

Lee finished with a song. A new direction. Still funny. Like a comedy shark, he stayed sharp as he kept moving on.

Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, 19 October
4/5

Written by Victoria Nangle in The Latest 7 on 19th October 2010. Filed Under: Reviews, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, Vegetable Stew
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