Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (BBC Two)
The Despondent Comic Targets Bad Books and their Writers
Mar 16, 2009
Comedy, like music, is a strange thing. As with anything that operates in the mainstream there are fads and fickle changes in popularity which mean that whatever is big today could be nothing tomorrow until some retro movement puts them back in fashion again. Then there’s people like Stewart Lee who, despite minor flirtations in the mid-90s, has never really been mainstream anyway but always consistently brilliant.
Stewart Lee – The Man behind Jerry Springer: The Opera
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle is the long awaited new show from the 41st Best Stand Up Ever (named so after a Channel 4 comedian poll placed him there), best known these days for penning the infamous Jerry Springer: The Opera which received a record number of complaints before it was even broadcast.
Lee was at the height of his success as part of cult double act Lee and Herring (with Richard Herring), who were responsible for the now almost forgotten but fantastic series’ Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Since then he has gone on to partake in several well received stand-up tours before he was offered the chance to have his own show on BBC Two, this mixture of live comedy and sketches.
The Dave Allen Formula
In a recent interview with The Times Lee said that his show was a call back to the days of Dave Allen’s “sit-down” comedy. “Not since they put Dave Allen in a chair,” he said, “and focused slowly in on him with a single camera. His stand-up was the kind they say never works on television — it was slow, with lots of pauses in it, and there were stories that took seven minutes to get to one punch line.”
The Allen comparison isn’t a bad one to make, as Lee’s anecdotal delivery with an added wit and vocabulary to challenge even Stephen Fry allows him to spend up to 10 minutes telling one well thought out joke. His unabashed approach means that he isn’t afraid to air his opinion no matter who agrees or who he offends; not many people would be willing to go into the centre of Scotland to call himself “Scotch” and proclaim that Braveheart is the worst film ever made.
Each episode of this series is based around a particular theme, with the first one about books. Here Lee picks obvious targets such as Dan Brown and instant celebrity hardbacks, especially those by Chris Moyles, but pulls no punches on what he sees as a lack of literally flair. “I like to see pictures of the same man wearing a variety of different hats,” was his simple analysis on a rather slim book about So Solid Crew’s Asher D.
Comedy Vehicle might not find an Audience but needs to be Seen
He also lampooned the idea of a toilet book, typified by Jeremy Clarkson who Lee has a particular dislike for and isn’t afraid to hide it. The short interspersed sketches tagged on to punch lines worked seamlessly in the show’s running, some featuring the actor Kevin Eldon and voice work by the multi-talented Peter Serafinowicz.
There was also an added “red button” interview with executive producer Armando Iannucci afterwards, which was a funny deconstruction of his show and further showcased both of their comedic abilities by playing it completely straight.
Lee has waited years to be given this opportunity again but is the audience ready to be as patient as he is? His slow, deadpan and drawn out rambles aren’t for everyone, his show is not as flashy as Live At The Apollo and in an age where sketch shows require quotable catchphrases to be popular it’s hard to say if Comedy Vehicle will find the following that warrants a second series. That is of course if Lee wants it. Either way television needs more level minded skeptics like him to remind us that, like QI, there is still a place for intelligent comedy on the gogglebox.
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle is shown on Monday evenings at 10pm on BBC Two.
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