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June 2017 - p.38
How are you Stewart?
I’m ok, but I got bitten by a spider during the previews
of this new show and ended up in hospital for a week.
They knew what it was at A&E immediately – a false
widow. They came to the south of England about a
hundred years ago but the winters normally kill them
off. Because of climate change there is a population
explosion and a lot of people are getting bitten. Donald
Trump and Paul Nuttalls need to tell the spiders there
is no climate change and then maybe they’ll stop biting
everyone.
You’ve been a stand-up for 28 years now, and you’ve
won every award going. How do you find the will to
keep going?
Well, duty to the kids drives me forward. And it’s all I
can do. I write more material than any other
comparable stand-up, and I cover a lot of ground on
the tours every year, but I am getting worn out. I
started writing the new show in June and then the
Brexit happened and obviously you can’t not mention
it but I found myself staying awake for about a week
trying to work out what was going on so I could work it
into the set. In the end I realised nothing was going to
change that fast and backed off a bit. Brexit and Trump
have made comics’ lives hard though. How people are
behaving is beyond satire, so what do you satirise?
Your new live show is called Content Provider. What
can people expect? Will it be the same as your BBC2
series Comedy Vehicle? Or will it be different to it?
It’s very different. Comedy Vehicle was four series of
six thirty minute, self-contained sets. This is one two
hour through line, although I’ve had to keep the ideas
and structure a little less rigid than usual to cope with
the sudden surges in news events. There is also an
apparently meaningless set which is actually very
subtle and cleverly linked to the themes of the show in
a way which becomes clear over the evening. It is
made entirely from the second hand dvds of other
stand-up comedians, none of which I paid more than
10p for. Other comedians’ dvds are currently the
cheapest building material in the world.
You’ve been described as ‘the comedian’s comedian’.
Is that flattering?
I don’t think it’s the case. Most of the younger
comedians seem to hate me, I think, and because I’m
not really on the club circuit any more, and do my
shows in theatres, I’m not part of any community and
none of the new ones know or see my stuff anyway
which is good I suppose, because if they did they
would give up.
STEWART LEE – CONTENT PROVIDER
By Caroline Feather
Your BBC2 show was cancelled in February after ten
years and four mutli-award winning series. Were you
surprised?
Not really. The BBC is facing massive cuts due to the
government trying to systematically dismantle it so
something had to go from the comedy slate. Also, I’d
done about all I could with that format. The truth is,
financially I am better off touring that amount of
material for 2 years, making a live dvd and then selling
it to Netflix than I am giving more material away to
BBC2 for less money. I am 48 with 2 kids and doing a
job with no pension plan so I need to be realistic about
making hay while people want to have my hay.
What advice do you have for young people trying to
be comedians?
Well, it’s the same as with acting or music. It isn’t like
30 years ago. If you’ve got rich parents you might be
ok, if you haven’t don’t bother. Every loophole that
allowed people to subsist financially while working out
their schtick has been closed and all the opportunities
are controlled by the same production companies. It’s
a closed shop now that is only open to the wealthy
anyway. Do something else.
What are your plans for the future?
Well I’m touring this Content Provider show until 2018.
I’m supposed to be making a folk rock album with the
group Trembling Bells at some point. I wrote a comedy
drama about Brexit in September that is currently with
a production company trying to find someone who’ll
pay to make it. I’ll write another book for Faber, this
one about doing stand-up on TV. But I need to slow
down. I have no life and no friends. I don’t do enough
with the kids. After the tour ends in the Summer of
2018 I’ll lie on the sofa for a bit and watch ‘60s Italian
westerns. They’re all I’ve watched for the last few
years really. I’ve see nearly 200. I like them because
the directors and writers tried to slip weird and
interesting and political things into them under cover
of the movies being genre. I suppose that’s what I try
to do with stand-up. At the end of the day it’s still just
comedy, but maybe you can make it meet something
better half way.
Stewart Lee is playing Wolverhampton Grand Theatre
on Wednesday 21 June, tickets are available in person
at the Lichfield Street Box Office, by calling:
01902 42 92 12
or online at:
