Considering that Americans were only too happy to enthusiastically embrace the all too idiosyncratic Eddie Izzard—how many English crossdressers can sell out the Hollywood Bowl or 1500 seat theaters in Texas?—it’s a shame that his fellow ultra-cerebral and famously circuitous British comic, Stewart Lee is less well-known on these shores. Frankly that seems unlikely to change anytime soon for the smartypants stand-up who casually drops dog whistle references to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Albert Ayler and John Cage in his act. I just can’t see Lee dumbing down his high IQ, gleefully elitist comedy for America. I’m not sure he could if he wanted and I very much doubt that it’s something the “officially 41st best stand-up” in Britain (“ever”) has even aspired to.

Better late than never (it aired in the UK back in March) I’m currently in the middle of series three of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, Lee’s highly rated BBC Two program. Like the series before it, the show features Lee’s (seemingly) improvisational musings, meandering anecdotes and rambling philosophical discursions with his highly original method of simultaneously deconstructing his stand-up comedy about stand up comedy whilst he is delivering it. (There’s even one camera reserved to address the home audience directly about what’s going on in the room.) Lee is aided this time around by the dark lord of comedy Chris Morris acting as his non sequitur confessor, quasi-shrink and “Number Two” in short cutaways from the performance.
 

 
If you are new to Stewart Lee’s work, series three is a great place to start and Lee’s at the height of his powers. Some feel that Lee is hit or miss (my wife is one of them, so is this guy who writes for The Telegraph) but so far series three has blown me away and each episode seen me laughing through tears. The first episode—nominally about pornography and the Internet, or at least it starts out that way was a masterpiece of sustained, highly complex, intricately woven anti-comedy that had elements of Bob Newhart (when you see it, I refer to the incredible bit where he’s on the telephone), Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and yes Eddie Izzard, but still very different, too. The man can play a multi-level chess game with words and ideas. Far from being merely “the 41st best stand-up” (“ever”) I’d suggest instead that when he’s on, Lee is vying with Doug Stanhope for the title of the current world heavyweight champion of deep comedy. The man is good. Damned good. Lee’s knife is fucking sharp. When he got to the end, the way he wrapped it all up so neatly, I wanted to give him a standing ovation in our living room. That shit required concentration! (Sadly it’s the the sole episode from the entire series not to be found on YouTube, Vimeo or Daily Motion).

Here’s something from the third episode, “Satire”: Lee on the meaning of the end of Planet of the Apes...
 

 
Episode 3, “Context” about words, racism, political correctness and Lee’s imaginary black wife. You have to stay with him and pay attention, at minimum, that’s the requirement. I like that. What working comic is “smarter” than Stewart Lee?
 

Alan Moore
 
Mustard Mag has delightful and downloadable PDFs of DIY papercraft dolls featuring all your favorite Britcom celebrities, including this week’s talkshow guests Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher from Snuff Box.

I love the Stewart Lee doll. Captures him well, I think. Not that he’s a blockhead or anything…

Download the PDFs here.

IT Crowd
 

Peep Show
 

 
Thank you, Steve Luc!

 
According to his biographer, Steve Aylett, writer Jeff Lint was “the most imaginative and inconvenient SF writer in modern history.”

Aylett’s new film Lint: The Movie documents the life and perplexing work of Jeff Lint with participation from the likes of Alan Moore, Stewart Lee, Josie Long, Robin Ince, D.Harlan Wilson, Jeff Vandermeer, Leila Johnston, Andrew O’Neill,and enigmatically creative literary/comics genius, Aylett himself.

Featuring clips from Lint’s books, cartoons, music, comics and films, plus interviews with fans & critics, the movie follows Lint’s life from the days of vintage pulp, through his adoption by the psychedelic counterculture and disastrous scripts for ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Patton’; to his status as an enigmatic cult figure. Never-before-seen archive footage and recordings of Lint himself, and commentary by those who knew and read him, results in a compelling portrait of the creator of Clowns & Insects, Jelly Result, The Stupid Conversation, The Riding On Luggage Show, the CATERER comic, and Catty and the Major, the scariest kids’ cartoon ever aired.

Lint’s was a career haunted by death, including the undetected death of his agent, the suspicious death of his rival Herzog, and the unshakable ‘Lint is dead’ rumours, which persisted even after his death. Like his contemporary Philip K. Dick, he was blithely ahead of his time.

Steve Aylett will premiere Lint: The Movie this weekend, Sunday, June 26th at the Kino Club in Brighton. The very wonderful ceremonial magician/transvestite stand-up comic, Andrew O’Neill will performing live and Aylett will do a Q&A. More screenings are coming up, so follow Steve Aylett’s Twitter feed for more information.

What I find amazing is that a talent like Tim Burton fucks around with unnecessarily remaking Planet of the Apes and Alice in Wonderland when he could be making one of Aylett’s multi-level works into a truly modern 21st century film. Aylett’s work is terrific source material for Hollywood (and if not, then certainly for Adult Swim!), but they just haven’t realized it yet. Burton’s oeuvre has needed a shot of new energy for years (if you ask me) and Steve Aylett would make a fantastic collaborator for him. How amazing would it be if Tim Burton directed The Caterer, huh? Just saying…
 

 

 
Fantastic portrait of comics magus Alan Moore by Frank Quitely. If you click here, you can see a much larger version of the piece and you’ll notice that Quitely did a “Hirschfeld” and wove titles from Moore’s oeuvre into his beard.

Below, an amusing segment with Moore from Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle as they discuss the truth about Winston Churchill…
 

 
Via Agent M Love Tacos

 
British stand up comedian Stewart Lee has returned to the BBC with a second series of his opinion dividing show Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. A ratings flop on its first run, it seems like a small miracle that it has made it back to our screens at all. Not least because a lot of hardcore comedy heads just don’t like it - and that includes some of our own writers here at DM, who have turned off episodes of the show in the past.

Lee was one half of the hip 90s alt comedy duo Lee and Herring, who starred in the cultish TV shows Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy. Since parting with Herring some years ago, Lee has followed a more polemical route without resorting to agitprop or being in-yer-face. He also took a very long hiatus from TV before returning in 2009, and seems to have ironed out some of the flaws from the first series of Comedy Vehicle. The involvement of Chris Morris, Arnold Brown and Armando Iannucci has perhaps helped too (worth particular mention are the interview cut aways featuring a very spiteful Iannucci and a deflated Lee).

In comedy terms this is very much an acquired taste. If you are happy to be a passive consumer of lowest common denominator observational humor, then this is not the show for you. If you are a fan of slapstick or rapid fire gags, Lee does neither. Even if you consider yourself a comedic connoisseur and you get what is is that he does, you still might not like it. And I’m not going to lie, Lee can be very hit or miss. But when he hits he hits hard - to answer the question in the headline I think he might actually be a comedy genius.

Watching the first episode of series two, which is ostensibly about “Charity” but is actually about Lee’s fictional grandad’s love for crisps, I felt like I had never seen anyone perform comedy that was this self-reflexive yet this funny before. Maybe I was in the right place at the right time, and in the right frame of mind but Lee manages that incredibly rare, almost magical feat of signposting a joke from miles away yet making the journey to the punchline, and the payoff itself, very funny indeed. See his grandad’s “crisps”/“crips” confusion (and even the repetition of the word “crisps” itself). This had me in stitches - contrary to the suggestion by some critics that his style will inspire a smirk rather than a belly laugh.

Stewart Lee manages to deliver comedy about comedy that keeps an audience engaged and laughing, without resorting to crudity or obviousness. He walks the thin line of being very knowing, and also knowing that we know he knows, without (completely) disappearing up his own arse. The viewer definitely has to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate Lee’s tangental, mumbly approach but if you’re willing to invest a bit more attention to a stand up comic than normal, it is richly rewarded.

Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle - Series Two, Episode One “Charity” - Part One
 

 
Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle - Series Two, Episode One “Charity” - Part Two