Review- Stewart Lee's Comedy Vechie.

Hello all,

In a first for this blog we will be taking a look at TV stand up comedy in the form of my favourite comic Stewart Lee.

Stewart Lee is an anti populist stand up who started his career in the 90's as part of the double act Lee and Herring, and after that he wrote the hugely successful and equally controversial musical Jerry Springer- The Opera since then he has released five solo stand up shows to date, written two books that are transcripts of those shows as well as a novel entitled The Perfect Fool and produced four series of his hit BBC 2 programme Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, which unfortunately will be the last as the BBC announced that they had decided to cancel the show earlier this year.

This is a general overview of all four series, the last of which was broadcast  in March of this year.

Lee is a comic like no other, his style relies heavily on repetition and frequently breaks the fourth wall, essentially making him the polar opposite of contemporary mainstream comics such as Micheal Mcintyre or Russell Howard, he has never appeared on things such as Live at the Appollo or Mock the Week, two programmes that have been frequent targets of his scorn, amongst many other things.

Lee is extremely politically left wing and is known for his defence of political correctness which has been much to the ire of many internet commentators who have taken to speaking about him in extremely unpleasant ways which he complies on his website under a section entitled "Online Critiques."

In the first series, broadcast in 2009, Lee took the opportunity to take, shall we say, a different view on some of the nations most beloved staples of television and culture. His take on Del Boy falling through the bar on Only Fools and Horses was particularly different to the general public's.

The second series took the concepts further, with the last episode of the series acting as a fictional account, of where Lee claims to have been at university with David Cameron and contains material dealing with certain kinds of Bullingdon rituals which in hindsight act as a foreshadowing of what was to come out a couple of years later.

The third series was where it truly got into its stride, tacking politics, culture and Lee's own status in ways which can only be described as genius, particularly with his now infamous routine about UKIP.

The fourth and final series pushed boundaries in a way that it is quite remarkable that it was broadcast on television, with his routine about Jeremy Corbyn the cat, a ten minute routine about pretending to eat a popadom and orienteering with Napalm Death.

The series as a whole gives Lee a platform to put his views across and test the boundaries of what television viewers expect and what they will tolerate. The series is definitely not for everyone and is probably pure marmite, you will love or hate it.

In addition to the main material, the in between fictionalised interviews conducted from the second series onwards, which replaced the somewhat hit and miss sketches from the first series, first conducted by Armando Iannuci in the second series and then by Chris Morris in the third and fourth, also provide moments of pure gold as they interrogate Lee and add further on his on stage character who feels that he is a failed comedian.

The criticism that Lee gets is that he does not have an appeal to anyone beyond left wing middle class Guardian readers, and this is the case in a lot of ways. Lee is very intent on refining his audience and particularly in the case of his political views, it would be hard to enjoy his work if you don't agree with them. However, I myself do not fit into the stereotypical demographic completely and I obviously am a fan, but I do tend to agree with him on most things.

At times, the series can be a bit self indulgent and some of the routines are a little hard to find hilariously funny. Like his main influence, Ted Chippington, Lee is not always about getting people to love him and claims to like to confrontation he gets when people come to his shows not knowing what to except and not liking it.

However, for those of us who hate most of popular culture and like to it see verbally destroyed in highly intelligent and hilarious ways, Lee is the best performer in a lung time since possibly Lenny Bruce to reflect our feelings.

All in all it is (or was) a fantastic cult series that I would recommend to anyone who like their comedy to a bit more daring and experimental then what passes for laughs in the mainstream.

Thanks,

Nathan.