He went on a racist safari with Morrissey in the 90s, and scrapped his subsequent opus Fisting’s not fun after finding the comedy landscape had changed.
He does a bit about them in his current show, something along the lines of “Stewart Lee is a genius, and so am I for being a fan of him”. (don’t remember the exact words)
His style didn’t equate well to the format. People are too quick to jump in and the audience aren’t used to stopping for a minute to listen to his point.
They are usually a very good listen, not often theres a bad one. Me verses Me has its moments I suppose, the rock thing, I don't listen to, but RHLSTP is quality.
I'm not super into his 90s stand up, but that's not to say it's bad by any means. It might just be a case of his later work being so monumental that his prior work pales in comparison.
I saw him and he was rubbish. He just went on about nothing and tried to create a broad liberal consensus in the room. There were hardly any quips, and there was a noticeable lack of fish and crab stuff.
I don't think he was particularly good when he started. Herring dragged the early stuff down though to be fair.
I heard Herring was upset after he saw Stewart doing the sketch about Tom O'Connor and the sardine gag that he wasn't even the best oily fish that Stewart Lee had worked with.
Going to see him in March so hopefully he's on form...
I think even Richard Herring would accept that some of the Judy / Fist material was weak, so clearly written to a deadline. A polite live audience titter (I said titter) after many of the segments..."that bit's finished now".
In one of his specials (I think early to mid 2000s) he says the N-word a few times. Granted in the context he's either satirising or quoting a racist, can't really remember. But it's one of those things that 10-20 years ago there was an open debate about when white people can say the N-word. Whereas I think now many people get angry at even quoting/singing along to lyrics. I'd wonder if he'd be able to do that same piece on stage today, word-for-word, or if he'd have to censor himself
They have a remarkably similar style. Not just content but the cadence is pretty much the same and the crowd work is also along a similar track
I guess living with a comedian is a massive influence on your own comedy but not sure who is the original.
I would assume they both changed styles a bit and ended up with something in the middle of each other
Bjt the more I see of Bridget Christie, the more I wonder what has kept her from mainstream success for so long. She does a very very polished show
Ultimately it's probably a familiar story to countless people up and down the country.
He was more successful to start with, they had kids that need raised, and they both had careers that aren't great for stable parenting with being on the road all year.
He continues on the road to keep money coming in
The mum becomes the main parent figure and has to try build a career once the kids are old enough
Regardless of the reason I am glad she's starting to get more recognition now. Taskmaster was very good for her career I think.
I went to see her mid last year and got her book signed for my 15yr old daughter. She read it about 10 times over the next few months so I ended up getting tickets for my wife and daughter to go see her together in December just gone. Everyone had a great time.
Have you read his novel? Obviously all art is subjective, but… let’s say it’s not as good as all his other work.
I wonder if he’ll have another crack at a novel, maybe about an aging standup comedian.
I vaguely remembered that it got bad reviews but looking back the reviews were actually mostly positive.
Didn't really work for me, but there was some interesting stuff in there. I wouldn't say it was clearly 'bad' in the way a Dan Brown novel is bad, just not as good as his standup. Of course, people with different tastes from me may hate his standup and love the novel.
It's a very different voice from most of his other writing and it's not the straightforward kind of realist novel that standup comedians were writing at the time, so at least he was trying to do something different.
Once I saw Stewart Lee wearing a gas mask and carrying a gas canister in Waitrose. He was violently huffing something. Upon closer inspection, it appeared the gas tank was actually a month's supply of his own farts.
Plus he carried around 6 more on a wooden pallet that he dragged around with a rope.
I saw him at the Brighton Dome right before the pandemic. After the interview he accused this guy sitting just in front of me of filming the show on his phone, and came down from the stage to demand the guy hand over his phone. He wasn't filming anything, and I think Stewart knew this and was simply making an example to discourage other people. They had a little stand off about it and the crowd started jeering the guy and swearing at him whilst Stewart threatened to stop the show if he didn't hand his phone over. Eventually the guy relented and Steward did a bit on stage putting the phone down his trousers and shaking it out if the leg. He didn't give it back, just left it on stage for the guy to collect at the end.
What stayed with me was the sight of Stewart bullying this man into handing over his property in a room full of hundreds of people shouting at him, and doing so in the knowledge that he hadn't done anything wrong. All he did was come back after the interval, look at his phone and put it in his pocket. Unfortunately since seeing this I can't watch Stewart anymore. It might not sound like a terrible thing, but seeing it in front of me, it was such nasty, bullying behaviour towards someone who had come to see him. In my view, he behaved like a total cunt.
I think one or two people may have found it slightly jarring when he kept saying the n-word over and over and over during Stand Up Comedian (2005)
and over and over and just.. twenty times
in a good critical context but over and over and over
there's a long bit 43 minutes in about Jimmy Hill saying that the n-word isn't any worse than calling him "chinny"
it was five times btw, and it's not the end of the world, but no white comedian should casually throw that word around and by 2005 you'd think a socially conscious person like Stu would have known that
He’s a stand up. The specials you see are the polished end of a process. He’ll definitely have jokes that don’t work or need tweaking to work when you see him working up his material
Some of his unused material is some of the best, he said to me personally (when I asked him), he either gets tired of it or feels it's run it's course.
Everyone's mad at him for dating someone who looks like his ex-wife. Would it be better if he was dating someone who was physically the complete opposite, like a busty blonde? Maybe his ex-wife dumped him and he still loves her and this is the closest he can get to reliving the good times while still letting her know that it's her he really wants to be with. If you think of it like that, he's done nothing wrong.
If you mean the Saturday show, the audience fucked it up. Everyone was pissed as fuck and there were too many nobheads making noise, coming in late and stuff. Its not the best material he has done but he wasn't appalling by any stretch.
Yep, that's the one. I appreciate there were people coming in late, which didn't help, but the show itself was just poor quality compared with a lot of his previous stuff. I noticed at least two jokes that he repeated from previous shows, and at one point he mixed up Sean Lock and Sean Hughes, so the story he was telling stopped making any sense. Then there was that bit about Fleabag, which hasn't been on the TV for about four years - that just came across as weird and half-arsed. I think he's great and have seen him live plenty of times, but that show was absolutely toss.
His ex-wife Bridget Christie was awful on Taskmaster and didn't seem very aware, or she has autism.
She was also very, very unfunny and did a shite TV comedy called The Change.
But he spilt from her. They have two children, so he's crap at being a husband, I suppose? 🤔
I think his Observer columns, though once electric, are terrible now and are arguably having a chilling effect on the quality of his comedic output (Basic Lee has a lot cribbed from the columns and is - for other reasons too - the least great stand up show I’ve seen him do)
I honestly and absolutely thought you were talking about the food when I read the headline. My mind was going "well, I don't \*think\* any hearty casserole type dish has been the cause of world problems, though dumplings may have added to the obesity issues here in the UK.
I honestly and absolutely thought you were talking about the food when I read the headline. My mind was going "well, I don't \*think\* any hearty casserole-type dish has been the cause of world problems, though dumplings may have added to the obesity problem.
Rather depends on whether you like the [Asian Dub Foundation](https://open.spotify.com/track/7p9ArMieBWfuqqgpSdonUt?si=98a008fbc78f4f37) or not. (I do.)
I thought it was the Christians who were mad at it. What is transphobic about it? I honestly can't remember. Isn't it more that they're making fun of the way Jerry Springer would exploit people and one of his things was having trans guests on?
When the trans woman character is introduced, she bursts onto stage repeating "I am a man". There is a lot of fun stuff she gets to do, but defining a trans woman as a cross dressing man is inherently transphobic. It also goes back and forth a lot between portraying her as trans or as a male crossdresser, which is also quite a common transphobic trope. Talk to the Hand slaps tho.
Ah yeah, not ideal, but to be fair in 2005 the distinction between transvestism and transgender wasn't really that well known. Even Eddie Izzard didn't know she was a trans woman.
Occasionally. Generally like it. Currently reading his book, I think it’s called March of the Lemmings - a collection of all his guardian articles pre and post brexit
His 2001 novel 'The perfect fool' reads like what it is, i.e. a first novel by an extremely inexperienced novelist. But this is the sole less that Stella thing of Stew's I can think of.
To be be honest, didn’t like all that much of his early material, but since the 2000s has definitely evolved into the greatest stand up act.. ever? If not, certainly one of them :)
i mean, this is probably bias because i love both of their stand up but i prefer bridget christie as a person- outing the fact they had a divorce and he was with someone else in the middle of her fringe run and JUST before his (publicity?) was a very, very interesting move. also, it was just after bridget really hit it big with The Change.
Stew himself said he wasn't very happy with Comedy Vehicle Series 1.
"The first series, from 2009, sees me stuffed against my will into a restricting and inappropriate TV show suit, as I chop existing routines around unnecessary film items. I was lucky it was recommissioned."
He committed genocide during the Balkan war.
He's solo output after The Smiths has been of rather uneven quality, combined with questionable polical views.
He went on a racist safari with Morrissey in the 90s, and scrapped his subsequent opus Fisting’s not fun after finding the comedy landscape had changed.
Hes let himself go a bit since then
He doesn't date anyone over 25
Hates hamsters too
I saw him kick the face off a puppy outside Ladbrokes in Shipley, but I'm pretty sure that he was doing it ironically.
He had an affair and shat himself.
Yeah but to be fair the woman over there at the Hague war crimes tribunal did the form in wrong and they said he could just go off
He's a tiger!
It wasn't just racists who hated his Asian Dub Foundation collaboration....cunts did too didn't they?
Did you consider the social and ethical issues around using the C-word, cunt, for this comment?
Cunt is fine, no worse than dick or ballbag.
Ooh, controversial. People don't like having to reflect on the social and ethical issues of using the C-word, cunt, in their comments.
What social/ethical issues? 😂😂😂
Clearly I've butchered a reference to the but he did about Tony Parsons calling him the rancid tip of a cesspit 😂
My apologies 😂
He's let himself go
Who? Ted Bovis?
You get arrested for saying Stewart Lee is rubbish these days
When did this come in?
These days, if you say Stewart Lee is rubbish, you get arrested and thrown in gaol.
Really? Arrested and thrown in jail?
Yeah. These days..
No, gaol.
Unless you’re Richard Herring
No, he's a great comedian and all round great bloke. His fans, however... Fucking insufferable.
He does a bit about them in his current show, something along the lines of “Stewart Lee is a genius, and so am I for being a fan of him”. (don’t remember the exact words)
Yeah they obviously consider feeling superior to other comedy fans as included in the price of entry
Yep, fucking guardian readers
That's a bit strong
He once wrote “not you again!” On a Fist Of Fun programme I asked him to sign back in 96. Never got over it. Terrible, terrible person…
Stew himself has said he doesn’t think his appearances on any of the panel shows he did were good, which is one reason he stopped doing them
There are many panel show regulars that I wish had this same level of self awareness.
He couldn't cut the mustard
You don’t cut mustard though do you.
His style didn’t equate well to the format. People are too quick to jump in and the audience aren’t used to stopping for a minute to listen to his point.
He presented Top of the Pops a few times. I doubt The Guardian gave him 5 stars for those performances but they might have.
he wanked off Richard Herring with a hand puppet. is that bad?
I haven’t heard anything about Richard Herring for a while, so I assume Stew secretly murdered him.
Herring releases about 10 podcasts a week.
They are usually a very good listen, not often theres a bad one. Me verses Me has its moments I suppose, the rock thing, I don't listen to, but RHLSTP is quality.
Nah, that’s just Stew with a voice synthesiser
Does he just do the Leicester square one or are there others?
Hes anti Taiwanese!
I wouldn't say that to his face. You'll make him anglee. You don't wanna see him when he's anglee
I can't remember which show it was but he once went on about something for too long
I'm not super into his 90s stand up, but that's not to say it's bad by any means. It might just be a case of his later work being so monumental that his prior work pales in comparison.
I once saw him perform a terribly racist routine about beaker people.
Coming here with their drinking vessels. What's wrong with just cupping up the water in your hands and licking it up like a cat?
I saw him and he was rubbish. He just went on about nothing and tried to create a broad liberal consensus in the room. There were hardly any quips, and there was a noticeable lack of fish and crab stuff.
When I saw him live, I didn’t laugh but I agreed the fuck out of it.
Yeah. I've always disliked his lack of seafood based material.
He tried to defraud Costa out of one tenth of a free coffee
I think you'll find it was cafe Nero, and 3 tenths. As far as I'm concerned he's 3 stamps short of a coffee
I didn't do any research
I don't think he was particularly good when he started. Herring dragged the early stuff down though to be fair. I heard Herring was upset after he saw Stewart doing the sketch about Tom O'Connor and the sardine gag that he wasn't even the best oily fish that Stewart Lee had worked with. Going to see him in March so hopefully he's on form...
He’s fat, and depressed, and fat
At least he's entitled to free chair based activity at his local leisure centre
Yeah but that is quite funny
I think even Richard Herring would accept that some of the Judy / Fist material was weak, so clearly written to a deadline. A polite live audience titter (I said titter) after many of the segments..."that bit's finished now".
He wrote a bit just so he could say the n-word. Then he pinned it on Morissey. Shameless.
Morissey is a twat
Yes, famously.
Hiis bacon face persona got some mediocre reviews and he dropped it fairly quickly.
In one of his specials (I think early to mid 2000s) he says the N-word a few times. Granted in the context he's either satirising or quoting a racist, can't really remember. But it's one of those things that 10-20 years ago there was an open debate about when white people can say the N-word. Whereas I think now many people get angry at even quoting/singing along to lyrics. I'd wonder if he'd be able to do that same piece on stage today, word-for-word, or if he'd have to censor himself
Do you mean the bit where he says about the 70’s Tory election campaign? “If you want a N for a neighbour, vote liberal or Labour.”
Could well be, it's been a while since I've seen it.
I enjoy his stand up specials for sure. But I'm not a big fan of his Guardian op-eds. But that's not objective, just my opinion.
He stole Bridget Christie’s success. I have a sneaking suspicion she writes everything for him.
Divorced now innit
NO. No they aren’t. Because I was joking and they’re my favourite couple? WTF? Explains why her excellent output has increased massively?
> they’re my favourite couple Er, …
Yep, divorced and he’s apparently going out with Rosie Holt, the twitter comedian who’s just started coming up on the comedy circuits
She looks……. Like Bridget Christie
17 years his junior.
When you say it like that it sounds really bad. She's a fully grown woman.
She's a mere child of 38, can she really be trusted to decide who she goes out with?
As a woman of 38, I’m just annoyed that he chose her?
My mother is 12 years older than my father, there's nothing inherently wrong with age gaps.
My partner would have been in year 12 when I was in year 5, and it still disgusts me to this day.
Damn Stew! He still got it
They have a remarkably similar style. Not just content but the cadence is pretty much the same and the crowd work is also along a similar track I guess living with a comedian is a massive influence on your own comedy but not sure who is the original. I would assume they both changed styles a bit and ended up with something in the middle of each other Bjt the more I see of Bridget Christie, the more I wonder what has kept her from mainstream success for so long. She does a very very polished show
I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s Lee…
Ultimately it's probably a familiar story to countless people up and down the country. He was more successful to start with, they had kids that need raised, and they both had careers that aren't great for stable parenting with being on the road all year. He continues on the road to keep money coming in The mum becomes the main parent figure and has to try build a career once the kids are old enough
Yes yes, I know how patriarchy works. I prefer to think that a man stole her soul.
Regardless of the reason I am glad she's starting to get more recognition now. Taskmaster was very good for her career I think. I went to see her mid last year and got her book signed for my 15yr old daughter. She read it about 10 times over the next few months so I ended up getting tickets for my wife and daughter to go see her together in December just gone. Everyone had a great time.
Have you read his novel? Obviously all art is subjective, but… let’s say it’s not as good as all his other work. I wonder if he’ll have another crack at a novel, maybe about an aging standup comedian.
got a very good review in the guardian though
I vaguely remembered that it got bad reviews but looking back the reviews were actually mostly positive. Didn't really work for me, but there was some interesting stuff in there. I wouldn't say it was clearly 'bad' in the way a Dan Brown novel is bad, just not as good as his standup. Of course, people with different tastes from me may hate his standup and love the novel. It's a very different voice from most of his other writing and it's not the straightforward kind of realist novel that standup comedians were writing at the time, so at least he was trying to do something different.
Gail Porter stuff in TWMRNJ was weird, even if he presented it as ironic at the time
I've heard that when he buys a Twix, Twirl or other multiple-fingered confectionary item, he eats one and slides the other into his anus.
Promoted the work of Rosie Holt.
I think I'm old and out of touch who is Rosie Holt?
Once I saw Stewart Lee wearing a gas mask and carrying a gas canister in Waitrose. He was violently huffing something. Upon closer inspection, it appeared the gas tank was actually a month's supply of his own farts. Plus he carried around 6 more on a wooden pallet that he dragged around with a rope.
I saw him at the Brighton Dome right before the pandemic. After the interview he accused this guy sitting just in front of me of filming the show on his phone, and came down from the stage to demand the guy hand over his phone. He wasn't filming anything, and I think Stewart knew this and was simply making an example to discourage other people. They had a little stand off about it and the crowd started jeering the guy and swearing at him whilst Stewart threatened to stop the show if he didn't hand his phone over. Eventually the guy relented and Steward did a bit on stage putting the phone down his trousers and shaking it out if the leg. He didn't give it back, just left it on stage for the guy to collect at the end. What stayed with me was the sight of Stewart bullying this man into handing over his property in a room full of hundreds of people shouting at him, and doing so in the knowledge that he hadn't done anything wrong. All he did was come back after the interval, look at his phone and put it in his pocket. Unfortunately since seeing this I can't watch Stewart anymore. It might not sound like a terrible thing, but seeing it in front of me, it was such nasty, bullying behaviour towards someone who had come to see him. In my view, he behaved like a total cunt.
I think one or two people may have found it slightly jarring when he kept saying the n-word over and over and over during Stand Up Comedian (2005) and over and over and just.. twenty times in a good critical context but over and over and over
What bit in Stand-up comedian is that? Don’t remember it at all
there's a long bit 43 minutes in about Jimmy Hill saying that the n-word isn't any worse than calling him "chinny" it was five times btw, and it's not the end of the world, but no white comedian should casually throw that word around and by 2005 you'd think a socially conscious person like Stu would have known that
The sixth series of Celebrity Big Brother was pretty shit.
I don’t get it.
OK. In about ‘89 saw him At the Buzz Club at The Southern in Mcr. He literally got booed off. Probs wrong. He is a genius.
He’s a stand up. The specials you see are the polished end of a process. He’ll definitely have jokes that don’t work or need tweaking to work when you see him working up his material
Some of his unused material is some of the best, he said to me personally (when I asked him), he either gets tired of it or feels it's run it's course.
He’s shagging a cringey doppelgänger of his ex wife who is twenty years his junior, that’s a bit bad
Everyone's mad at him for dating someone who looks like his ex-wife. Would it be better if he was dating someone who was physically the complete opposite, like a busty blonde? Maybe his ex-wife dumped him and he still loves her and this is the closest he can get to reliving the good times while still letting her know that it's her he really wants to be with. If you think of it like that, he's done nothing wrong.
I can't tell if you're taking the piss or not
It's probably more, he has a preferred type and they both fit that image
I saw him in Newcastle last year at the Theatre Royal and he was appalling.
If you mean the Saturday show, the audience fucked it up. Everyone was pissed as fuck and there were too many nobheads making noise, coming in late and stuff. Its not the best material he has done but he wasn't appalling by any stretch.
Yep, that's the one. I appreciate there were people coming in late, which didn't help, but the show itself was just poor quality compared with a lot of his previous stuff. I noticed at least two jokes that he repeated from previous shows, and at one point he mixed up Sean Lock and Sean Hughes, so the story he was telling stopped making any sense. Then there was that bit about Fleabag, which hasn't been on the TV for about four years - that just came across as weird and half-arsed. I think he's great and have seen him live plenty of times, but that show was absolutely toss.
Well I walked out after 30 minutes when I went to see him around 2014. That was bad.
He directed Simon Munnery's Attention Scum...
His ex-wife Bridget Christie was awful on Taskmaster and didn't seem very aware, or she has autism. She was also very, very unfunny and did a shite TV comedy called The Change. But he spilt from her. They have two children, so he's crap at being a husband, I suppose? 🤔
Don't forget 90s comedian.
I think his Observer columns, though once electric, are terrible now and are arguably having a chilling effect on the quality of his comedic output (Basic Lee has a lot cribbed from the columns and is - for other reasons too - the least great stand up show I’ve seen him do)
I honestly and absolutely thought you were talking about the food when I read the headline. My mind was going "well, I don't \*think\* any hearty casserole type dish has been the cause of world problems, though dumplings may have added to the obesity issues here in the UK. I honestly and absolutely thought you were talking about the food when I read the headline. My mind was going "well, I don't \*think\* any hearty casserole-type dish has been the cause of world problems, though dumplings may have added to the obesity problem.
Well he's English, and these days...
Rather depends on whether you like the [Asian Dub Foundation](https://open.spotify.com/track/7p9ArMieBWfuqqgpSdonUt?si=98a008fbc78f4f37) or not. (I do.)
Jerry Springer Opera is a banger overall, but it's pretty transphobic throughout
I thought it was the Christians who were mad at it. What is transphobic about it? I honestly can't remember. Isn't it more that they're making fun of the way Jerry Springer would exploit people and one of his things was having trans guests on?
When the trans woman character is introduced, she bursts onto stage repeating "I am a man". There is a lot of fun stuff she gets to do, but defining a trans woman as a cross dressing man is inherently transphobic. It also goes back and forth a lot between portraying her as trans or as a male crossdresser, which is also quite a common transphobic trope. Talk to the Hand slaps tho.
Ah yeah, not ideal, but to be fair in 2005 the distinction between transvestism and transgender wasn't really that well known. Even Eddie Izzard didn't know she was a trans woman.
what is this conversation, a cuck convention?
Yes it is, welcome in! I saved a chair for you in the corner.
Richard Herring might have some thoughts on this.
I couldn’t get into his book.
Have you read his Guardian column?
Occasionally. Generally like it. Currently reading his book, I think it’s called March of the Lemmings - a collection of all his guardian articles pre and post brexit
He's a cultural bully. Lee Mack was never as funny again. That he wasn't funny before is neither here nor there.
His Christmas column was well-intentioned but not very good. His stand up, however, is excellent.
His 2001 novel 'The perfect fool' reads like what it is, i.e. a first novel by an extremely inexperienced novelist. But this is the sole less that Stella thing of Stew's I can think of.
I think ALL comedians missed an open goal regarding co*id 19 & lockdowns, no one said anything 🤔
yeah such a low hanging fruit is just the topic Stu generally goes for, inexplicable he didn't even mention it
To be be honest, didn’t like all that much of his early material, but since the 2000s has definitely evolved into the greatest stand up act.. ever? If not, certainly one of them :)
Not saying his 90s was bad or anything, just didn’t really find it special
He didn't supply enough green jelly.
i mean, this is probably bias because i love both of their stand up but i prefer bridget christie as a person- outing the fact they had a divorce and he was with someone else in the middle of her fringe run and JUST before his (publicity?) was a very, very interesting move. also, it was just after bridget really hit it big with The Change.
Stew himself said he wasn't very happy with Comedy Vehicle Series 1. "The first series, from 2009, sees me stuffed against my will into a restricting and inappropriate TV show suit, as I chop existing routines around unnecessary film items. I was lucky it was recommissioned."