This week, Stewart Lee casts his beady eye over stand up, specifically musical stand up and modern stand up. To do this he spends the half hour sitting in a chair holding a guitar, commenting that "that's what all the young comics do". While continuously tuning said guitar, he gets going recounting an experience working in a library before he was a stand up. However, this soon devolves into a falsetto ad-libbed account of a conversation between two librarians serving as a metaphor for his comedy career, possibly as a comment towards both his critics and his supporters. He then compares comedy in the eighties (where everyone hated the Tories) to comedy today (where everyone hates their electrical appliances) before going into a spiel attempting observational humour regarding broken toasters and receipts, having a pop at stadium comics such as Michael McIntyre, which is always welcome. From there he goes on to talk about how the IRA are preferable to Al Qaeda due to their politeness, their goals and their "British ways", even if they don't want to be British. This took us to the end of the half hour when Stew serenaded the audience with a Bob Dylan style ditty about modern comedy jokes, featuring callbacks to the toaster routine.
While I didn't find the song funny, I guffawed at the librarian routine and the toaster bit, and even the IRA stuff. The line "when I attempt observational comedy, it just ends up being electrical consumer advice" is a particular highlight, as was the line "he is a funny librarian, you just need to see other librarians to get what he's all about." With the latter quote, Lee could've ended the bit there and then and moved on and it still would have been hilarious; but of course, that isn't his style, as we know by now. I'm beginning to see that each week he relays similar jokes, but with different content, not that I'm complaining. I suppose that's why he's adopted the guitar part of his routine, something he used in the show, If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One. Throughout the programme, several members of the audience get up to leave, presumably offended that Lee dislikes Al Qaeda. This happens so often in his shows that Lee jokes that instead of the camera cutting to some celebrity laughing like on Live at the Apollo, a montage should be shown of people leaving the show in droves. This happens during the song and Lee stops the show dead to scold the man, saying it's obviously near the end. Thirty seconds to go, what a cheek. I found Lee himself to be more melancholic than usual, what with being extra competitive; the IRA joke was years old and his jibes at other comedians seemed more throw away than before. Maybe doing a second series has taken his toll on Mr. Lee. It still ticks the right boxes and raises a titter, so it's all right by me.
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