July 20, 2012

Review: The many worlds of Stewart Lee

Courtesy of chrisjohnbeckett, Stewart Lee
Stewart Lee's Carpet Remnant World
Royal Festival Hall, Southbank, London
Wednesday 18th July

Only the comedian Stewart Lee could indirectly express his continuing hatred for Top Gear through some brilliantly cringe-worthy praise for the show from Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

Fresh from his award-winning BBC 2 Series, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, he discussed (Frankie) Boyle's Law which apparently states that if something is not funny enough, you just add something on the end. His ingenious ironic wit uses this advice to his advantage throughout.

Lee rightly tells of how there are no good jokes about Islam as there is not enough knowledge of the religion between the stand-up and the audience.

The divided laughter of the Royal Festival Hall toppled Lee, 44, into his middle-aged breakdown, mocking the members of the audience who weren't keeping up with the intelligence of his flawless comic timing, execution and content.

All he does any more is watch Scooby Doo with his son and drive down the motorway to make five-minute sketches out of amusing shop names. Office World drew a classic prolonged talk about his meeting with a man made out of stationary before he visited City Meat, resulting in excessive amounts of dribble and spit washed across the stage, with some left on his face.

While drinking white wine straight from the bottle his hatred of social networking produced an infuriating rant on the thousands of pointless tweets about Lee's life.

Following the reading of some of 40,000 online comments gruelling Lee, he scowled at the audience shouting 'you miserable Royal Festival c***s!'

His disgust for 'all these young Russell comedians' on the scene continued in an outstanding close to the show which saw comedian Russell Kane slated for his emotional close to his stand-up which had brought Lee's wife to tears.

The former half of the Lee and Herring 90s duo mocked Kane with his own rendition using dimmed lights and heart-warming music.

Although enthusiastic support act Michael Legge was uninspiring, Lee impeccably delivered surely the greatest stand-up show of the year.

Rating: 9/10

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