Just discovered the stand-up comedian Stewart Lee

Cafe Society
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Background: While I appreciate a bit of good standup, I rarely watch full standup routines, and if I do, I don’t enjoy them as much as I expected to. (I recently saw Louis CK live, and at 41 it was my first time actually going to a standup show per se. Frankly, while I was entertained, I did get a bit bored - as I almost always do watching long standup sets on TV. And I think LCK is really funny, in small doses or when making weird sitcoms!)

But then a commenter on the Film Crit Hulk blog (in this post on PC culture etc.) put up a link to Stewart Lee, British standup, talking about PC. Here’s the clip in question: - YouTube

And I loved it, and started checking out more clips on YouTube. Then the paltry offerings that Netflix has. Then more YouTube. Including non-comedic stuff (a lecture on the craft of standup, an interview with Alan Moore, his episode of Marc Marin’s WTF podcast…).

I generally agree with his politics, but that’s not why I love his work. He’s very funny when he’s not talking about politics at all. There’s something very mature, confident, and *knowing *about his relationship with the audience that I dig.

I’m reminded of those anecdotes about Frank Lloyd Wright defending his buildings with the low, leaky ceilings - except that Lee is, actually, engaging with and understanding the concerns of the audience, even as he pretends to dismiss their “not getting it.” It’s very meta, without being too cerebral/self-referential. (Though it is probably quite high on the cerebral/self-referential scale, I guess.)

Who else is a big Stewart Lee fan? Other, similar comics I should check out? I’d like to like standup more as a medium than I do. :slight_smile:

He’s previously mentioned in this SDMB post: Best stand-up comedy acts of the last decade? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board

For a good short-length taste of his meta-comedy, I recommend this bit where he takes on the BBC hit show Top Gear: Stewart Lee and Top Gear - YouTube. But his performances really do work best - IMHO - when watching them in full.

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I’m not sure there’s anything to be said about Stewart Lee that he hasn’t already said about himself …

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I saw him live in Bristol UK in 2015 and could hardly breathe with laughter when he did his Romanian radio bit. And again in 2016 in Cardiff, got him to sign his DVD “Michael McIntyre”. He has a wonderful way of turning the audience against themselves and making you feel so awkward for laughing. Check his BBC2 series “Comedy Vehicle” that had three series of six episodes. Series 2 by far the best. “You could leave your house unlocked… Because it didn’t exist.”

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I’m more of a Richard Herring fan myself.

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I do like him, on my list of all-time favourite comics he’s certainly sneaking into the top 50.

But of course he is very meta and self-referential and loves to wring out the material to within an inch of it’s life and sometimes it is superb and sometimes it falls flat.
Such is life, he can’t be brilliant and relevant for everyone all the time, what do expect? the moon on a stick?

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I’ll give it to you straight, like a pear cider that’s made from 100% pears.

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Jonathon Ross has let himself go.

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I love the Stewsman, the Stewmeister, El Stew.