Stewart Lee: 90′s Comedian review
January 16, 2008 – 1:42 pm | by Adam
A DVD that almost didn’t happen from a comedian that almost called it a day back in 2001. For anyone who doesn’t know, Stewart Lee is the co-writer of the controversial ‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’ and Former comic partner of Richard Herring.
Lee is an uncompromising comedian, the likes of which aren’t often seen. He makes fun of his audience by separating them in to teams – team A who understand what he’s talking about and team F who don‘t really get it.. The show is, in essence about two things. Firstly the story of a year of his life (including the aftermath of Jerry Springer: The Opera and the religious protest it caused) and secondly… Joe Pasquale. I won’t ruin it, I’ll just say Lee really has it in for Mr Jacobs Crackers.
So what’s different about Stewart Lee. For starters his almost Shatner like comic delivery. The way he uses pauses somehow manages to get an extra few laughs out of every joke. He’s one of those people you hear about who can “be funny reading from a phonebook”. uniquely he sometimes tells stories so slowly that the audience has already reached the punch line before he has so just stops talking. “I haven’t said anything yet! Next time I think I’ll just come out with a list of subjects and you can think of something you find funny about them. That way if it‘s not a very good show, it‘s your own fault.”.
Strangely the cutaways of audience members are all focused on the most bored looking people in the audience. Those he affectionately refers to as ‘Team F’. This definitely puts emphasis on Lee’s style. He’s a man with a niche audience. An anti-Peter Kay if you will. He gets so possessed by the stories he tells and way he felt when the incidents happened that he says he often comes off stage feeling very depressed. For example when he drops the mic and delivers 5 minutes of material by screaming it in to the audience.
If you’ve never seen any Stewart Lee I’d urge you to check him out immediately. He’s a true underdog even though he’s officially the 41st best stand-up ever.
