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Episode Three: 41st Best Stand-up Ever! (2008)
621 Plays9 months ago
In this episode, Dan and Joe battle adverse weather and terrible internet connections to bring you this mammoth episode, looking at Stew's 2008 effort '41st Best Stand-Up...Ever'.
This special finds 'The Comedian Stewart Lee' in an odd state of limbo, as he is lauded as the 41st best stand-up ever by one of those rubbish late night countdown shows on Channel 4, whilst simultaneously struggling to get anyone from television to give him a commission (as well as being ridiculed by his own Mum for not being as funny as "Scouse Groundhog" Tom O'Connor off of Crosswits)
Also in the episode, Dan and Joe discuss their own stand-up related struggles and what misogyny was like in the early 2000s, amongst a bunch of other things.
COME AND SEE STEWNIVERSE LIVE IN LEICESTER WITH SPECIAL GUEST AND STAR OF THE ALTERNATIVE COMEDY EXPERIENCE MICHAEL LEGGE!
COME AND SEE DAN LIVE IN LEICESTER
COME AND SEE JOE LIVE IN LEICESTER
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Theme
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to the Across This Universe podcast. My name's Daniel Powell and in this particular episode we're taking a look at 41st best stand-up ever recorded in 2008 at the stand in Glasgow. Now this particular episode of the podcast has been really difficult to put together mainly because due to a lot of the weather disruption that we've had here in the UK, Joe's internet kept crapping out.
Technical Challenges and Recording Issues
00:01:01
Speaker
So it's taken us about four or five different recording sessions to stitch that together. So apologies if there are a few more break points than is ideal. But in terms of the episode, I really enjoyed kind of looking back at this one. It's a piece of Stu's work that I'm really fond of. And Joe has even said that this piece of work is his particular
New Intro Music and Host Introductions
00:01:27
Speaker
favorite.
00:01:27
Speaker
You may have noticed that you no longer have to listen to my horrific wheezing whistle as part of this intro to this podcast. That's because we've been provided with some snazzy new intro music courtesy of previous episode's guest, the wonderful Eddie French. So thank you very much to Eddie for putting that together. So without further ado, here's Joe and I talking about 41st best stand up ever.
00:02:01
Speaker
Joseph, we're here again. So what we're trying to do here is we're going to step through 41st best stand up ever. And we've tried to do this so far three times now, I think.
00:02:19
Speaker
I've got the recordings in front of me. The first recording, we managed an hour and a quarter and I think one of us had to go. It was either you or me. I think it was me. Someone had to leave. Although in fairness, to be fair, I had loads of stuff on that day as well. So when you said... You do have a baby. Yeah, exactly. We've got a young baby and stuff. So when you said, I need to leave, I was kind of...
00:02:44
Speaker
I was disappointed, but half, you know, part of me was just like, yeah, that's cool. Because I was, you know, it's life seemed life's really long, you know, when it does find a way, though. Yeah, it does. But life does find a way. And Wally doesn't mean that. Do you think that that was a Wally reference? That's that well, that it's it is in Wally, but it could be in other things.
00:03:12
Speaker
It's Jurassic Park. Oh yeah, Jurassic Park, fair enough. Life finds a way. Yeah, but I haven't seen Jurassic Park anywhere near as recent as I've seen WALL-E. Okay. You know, I've got four kids. Yeah, carry on. But anyway, so we tried to do this first time, sacked it off after about an hour because I think you needed to go somewhere and I wasn't going to argue with that because
00:03:37
Speaker
You know, kids, the second time we tried to do it the other day and your internet craps out after half an hour. Yeah. And I was just, I was literally staring for about six minutes at like a frozen image of your face mid sentence.
00:03:55
Speaker
in your Harry Potter hoodie. Well, I need to show them that pink behind the curtain. Looking like a fucking Sith. Sitharim. Yeah, exactly. So here we go. Third time's a charm. Although I will say just before we started recording, your internet craps
Joe's Stand-up Highlights
00:04:15
Speaker
out again. So we'll see what happens.
00:04:17
Speaker
So before we get into the 41st best chat, we'll just do a quick debrief on the other night because obviously you recorded your show.
00:04:28
Speaker
So, at the social bar in Leeds, this is for the listeners, at the social bar in Leeds the other night, Joe put on a sold-out performance of his show, A Guide to Therapy for Terrible People. And I opened the show and sort of perhaps set the incorrect tone for the evening. I don't know. I don't think that's true.
00:04:51
Speaker
by uh it was it was a tale of two halves i did 17 minutes of the allocated 15 that you gave me um now you'd be 20 well did you all right i thought you'd said 15 so i'd set my timer i'd set my timer in my pocket for for 15 and i was like midway through my last routine yeah so i just kept going until i finished it no i said i said 20 oh well that's fair enough i uh i don't know why i had 15 in my head so that's fair
00:05:20
Speaker
it was very much a tale of two halves because the first 10 minutes kind of went quite well and then something happened in the room i can't remember off the top of my head right now but a woman was talking because it's quite a quite a compact room yeah it's a nice little nice little room lovely little room yeah might do some dim roll there yeah i think you should it's a really good little room
00:05:42
Speaker
But there's a woman who was quite restless throughout. And I'd managed to sort of ignore her up to a point. And then there was a bit where she made a comment that I sort of heard the tail end of and it was something about the silence being the best bit.
00:06:02
Speaker
which is quite a good heckle. You know, we're seeing a sound of silence, but yeah, exactly. Cause I was doing a bit all around the, uh, I disagreed with her comment personally. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm not, I'm not being funny or anything. I, uh, which is probably why she didn't like it. You know, I'm, uh, I, I think that's a, quite a good bit, like of, of all of my new bits that I've got going on for them. They may be, um, how do I put this? Not the audience for it.
00:06:32
Speaker
not the audience for it I think they they used to a different kind of comedian yeah they weren't asked they weren't used to being asked to I suppose participate in the way that I was asking them to participate and yeah I suppose not not necessarily used to me okay so I won't say that I intentionally fucked it up I'm not
00:06:57
Speaker
as brave as that in the sort of Stuart Lee sense. I didn't intentionally fuck myself up but what I do with that bit is I know there's a potential for it to kind of go wrong about halfway through and it started to unravel. I don't want to kind of go into it as to give the bit away just in case any of the lovely people listening do decide to come and see it at Leicester or indeed Brighton but
00:07:20
Speaker
There's a bit halfway through that Sound of Silence bit where it does naturally start to unravel if I don't keep hold of it. And it did that. But again, the bit of Stuart Lee that's in me does quite enjoy that. So I didn't try to wrestle it back. I was like, OK, let's just, it's falling apart. Let's let it fall apart.
00:07:43
Speaker
I didn't intentionally make it fall apart, but it started to. So I was like, right, I'll just go with it. Fuck it. And I don't think they were quite understanding of what it was I was doing. I think they were like, oh, no, this is going really wrong. And he doesn't know what he's doing. But I did know what I was doing.
00:07:57
Speaker
when I was quite happy to ride that wave, but they just went into it. So anyway, she started having a little chat. And I don't know why I did this, to be honest. I just had enough, I think. I don't mind what you did of the chat. Well, because I kind of sort of, I don't think she realised I was talking to her because I realised I had this problem with her. No, she definitely did. Well, she sort of pointed at herself as if to say me, but
00:08:24
Speaker
I tend to have this problem with head-closing with crowd interaction in that I've got a lazy eye and they don't know where I'm looking half the time.
00:08:32
Speaker
So like even when I did the first bit with James in the front row, James T, our friend, even he was like, are you talking to me? And I had to sort of nod at him because my left eye had sort of fucked off somewhere else. So it looked like I was looking at someone else. But anyway, so she said her piece and I cottoned onto her and I basically said to her, you've got quite a mouth on you, haven't you?
00:09:01
Speaker
In quite an aggressive way. Yeah, well, I didn't quite modulate. Almost actually aggressive. I didn't modulate as well as I should have. I tried to say it with a smile on my face, but arguably that probably made it worse. And then I think I well and truly lost the room when I asked the big guy if he took steroids. No, I think, I think everybody laughed. I think I don't know. If I, if I remember rightly,
00:09:30
Speaker
And I know him, so he was my mate. Oh, he was. He's not anymore. I fucked. He's fine. He's my mate. He probably pull a lot. Was he the guy that brought 10 people? Yeah. Oh, fair enough. Yeah. He's sound. I mean, listen, you will have found it funny, especially because at the end of all, I went over and I went and I'm not going to apologize because fuck it.
00:09:56
Speaker
And I was like, well, he didn't really say anything. And then I said, obviously, I was aware that you did steroids.
00:10:08
Speaker
anyway. Did he do steroids? No, no, no, no. Okay, right. The joke. Okay, I said I needed steroids anyway, but not because of this and squeezed his muscles. Okay. And said because of your because of your tiny penis. Which obviously, his friends enjoyed.
00:10:29
Speaker
Oh good, that's good. He wasn't bothered by it at all. Well as long as you got something out of it, that's fine. But then obviously part two of my evening was then I went, so the social bar is literally 100, 200 yards away from Santiago's, which is our regular sort of Wednesday, or my regular Wednesday at least. And I know you get there a lot as well. My ad hoc Wednesday. Your ad hoc Wednesday, the scene of the infamous, well I won't spoil it because it's... Yeah, yeah, because Lester. I'm not going to say any words. No, Brighton, not Brighton.
00:10:59
Speaker
But yeah, so I went down to Santiago's, so I opened your gig and then had a little chat for five minutes, finished my beer and run down to Santiago's. And I got there sort of just in time to see the person who was on before me, who was Rob Thomas. I love Rob Thomas. So do I. Incredible. I think he's incredible. Such a brilliant, brilliant joke writer. Anyway, so I got there just in time to see Rob Thomas.
00:11:28
Speaker
annihilate the room like so it was quite a i will say this and if any of them are listening i apologize but it's quite a cold audience you know the way the way it can be sometimes so it was a room full of the headline acts who were double acts that they'd kind of brought all the people they were doing a preview yeah they're doing a preview for lester yeah cross on the
00:11:51
Speaker
stage as well. Yeah it was Cross London Wilkinson and who I've seen individually but I've not seen as a double act and I was gutted because I couldn't stick around because obviously we've got a new baby so I like I have to get home sort of as quick as I can really when I'm done but I'd love to see them at some point but anyway so they I think the majority of the audience were there to see their preview so obviously the the kind of first half the opening acts doing seven minutes each
00:12:14
Speaker
probably wasn't necessarily what they'd come for. Um, but Rob warmed them up really nicely, really got them rocking. And then Tom, Tom B who, you know, one of the two guys that runs the night got on and he'd already told me he was going to do this. Um, he purposefully sort of like do like really bombastic intros for me. Cause he knows it doesn't suit me at all.
00:12:41
Speaker
You know, it'll really big me up and he'll say stupid things like, oh, he was voted one of the best jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe 2023. It's true. Which is true. All right. Fair enough. Which is true by the Telegraph. But that sounded like you didn't like the Telegraph then.
00:13:05
Speaker
I always remember that Stuart Lee thing, which I think, to be honest, I think it was in a ComCom pod interview where he was talking to Stu Goldsmith and he said something about
00:13:18
Speaker
the worst reviews he ever got, which is a zero star review. He said there's two dominics, there's a nice one that works for the Times and there's an evil one that works for the Telegraph. So I just, I always remember that whenever I think of the Telegraph. But anyway, so yeah, I did get voted one of the 11 best jokes of the year in a refuge by the Telegraph, which I won't cough this time to make it sound underhand.
00:13:43
Speaker
Now he always does this because he knows that whatever happens I'm not going to then live up to the kind of the massively overstayed Americanized intro that he's done for me. He always says really nice things but I get on then and it's like
00:14:03
Speaker
I'm really quiet. I'm really quite monotone. I'm quite understated. I don't, you know, there's no big gestures for me. So I can't match up to the energy that that builds. Which I quite like, to be honest. It's quite a jarring thing and it's quite pleasing to me. But to an audience, it's weird. However, on this particular night, I made a decision that I regret and I regretted it almost instantly.
00:14:27
Speaker
the sofa that's normally knocking around at Santiago's was on the stage for some reason and Tom couldn't move it because obviously he uses a walking stick couldn't move it and there was no one there to help him move it and then you know people arrived in time for the gig starting so it was on the stage yeah it was on the stage and I made a snap decision to do my entire set from the sofa
00:14:48
Speaker
like just laid on the sofa like I wish I was there I think I'd have loved it it was like well Tom did apparently but the audience did not but I kind of did it intentionally obscuring just you thinking that because we've had this out so many times where you think you've bombed and you haven't
00:15:06
Speaker
Oh no, I think I did. I think I really did. And in fairness, if I were to be honest, right, if I look at that next to the gig I did 10 minutes earlier for you, I wouldn't call that one a bomb, I would call that one, it was going well and then I sort of lost it a bit. I don't think it was a bomb, but I think it was on course to be a lot better than it ended up being. And then the second gig,
00:15:34
Speaker
by comparison, was an actual bomb. So what I did was my original intention was to lay on the sofa in the fetal position with my back to the audience, hopefully with a little bit of buttcrack. Like, you know, when Eugene's just sort of, they sort of strain a little bit. I am aware. I'm going to wait, man. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're all there, mate. So that was my intention, was to hopefully have that, like,
00:16:02
Speaker
funny image and them not be able to see my face. And I just do my entire set in the fetal position with my back to the audience on the sofa. But I realized as soon as I got up there that I was much fatter than the width of that sofa. So then I had to instead of doing that, then I had to lay on it on my back.
00:16:28
Speaker
I'd already committed to the bit so I was like I can't back out of it now because it'll just look stupid so I laid on the sofa did my entire set looking at the ceiling didn't make eye contact with the audience once right the worst bit the biggest laugh that I got in the entire seven minutes was when I got up off the sofa to finish
00:16:48
Speaker
I realised that my back had sunk into the sofa and it had become really painful. So when I got up, I sort of went, to get up. Yeah, like that. And that was the biggest laugh of the evening for me. And I'll tell you how I know it was a bomb, right? You know, at the end of each section in Santiago's, they'll recap who's been on. Yeah, yeah. My name got nothing.
00:17:23
Speaker
They were so enthused for Rob Thomas's name and they immediately stopped being enthused. Yeah. So that one didn't go well. But, you know, as anyone who who's listening, and Joe, I know you know this, but as anyone who's listening who does comedy will know, it doesn't always go well. Sometimes you make decisions that don't pay off and that's the nature of it. And that's why I like Stuart Lee, because the way that he presents his stand up material is he shows you everything. He shows you
00:17:39
Speaker
No. That's harsh, man.
00:17:51
Speaker
bits that don't go well the way you film comedy vehicle you hear glasses smashing in the room you see bits unraveling you know in the the milder comedian dvd record you know which we'll get to later there's a guy that that absolutely undoes him in real time and it's great really yeah it's amazing and even the you know on the the stand-up comedian dvd that we did a while back
00:18:15
Speaker
they kept cutting to that fat Scottish guy's face. So tech things happen. Like yours. Well, this is what I wanted to get to, right? Was because you then recorded your show and I didn't get to see this, but I asked you how it went and you basically said, tech issues.
Discussion on Stewart Lee's Stand-up
00:18:35
Speaker
I mean it probably wasn't as bad as I felt like it was. Because it's live comedy and it's one of them that there's nothing that you can do sometimes. So what happened was we started and I will admit part of this is my fault so I'd forgotten I didn't know where my clicker was.
00:18:58
Speaker
for the laptop, I asked Saul to do that on my behalf. Right, fair enough. This is Saul Henry who emcees at the Comedy Cellar at Verve and emceed your gig. Yeah, who emceed my gig beautifully. Yeah, he did, yeah, yeah. But I gave him minutes of notice. Great. And he was like, my anxiety levels have rocketed. Yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker
So Saul is a man who is not short of anxieties and you gave him another massive one. I know. Minutes before that. So what happened was he didn't know when the first slide was going to be put up, which is the most important slide, shall we say. Yeah, of course it is. Because I'm introducing someone. Yes, yeah. And his finger was hovering over the button.
00:19:51
Speaker
And it must have hit it without him intending to. In a moment much earlier than intended in my show.
00:20:02
Speaker
that the image comes up on screen, but it's behind me, so I don't notice for a bit. No, not really, until I noticed, because of the way it worked, there was more light on my face from
00:20:23
Speaker
from the projector. So I noticed that something was wrong from that because I was like actually the opening title is mainly a black screen so it doesn't kind of shine as bright. So then I looked and went oh well the great thing about this is that none of you have yet got the context of what the fuck that is.
00:20:46
Speaker
so managed to kind of push through that and then halfway through we play a game halfway through the game I notice Saul go to his knees
00:21:04
Speaker
and start crawling under the table these days. And I was like, what is going on? And then I look at the screen and there's a notification on the screen saying that my battery from my laptop's about to die. Even though I'd plugged it in, but it seems afterwards, it's been moved and the wire that goes into the wall
00:21:31
Speaker
that goes into the box has come undone. Anyway, so that happened. And I was like, okay. Also, before all this, before we even started recording, the microphone stopped working. So Saul had to vamp for like five minutes whilst we were trying to figure out what was going on with the... This is exceptional. With the sound. So I kept turning everything up.
00:21:59
Speaker
And then the woman who was incorrect actually, the person who was doing the video, checked on the camera and was like, no, it's blowing out. And I had to turn everything back down. Thankfully this was before we got recording, so that was okay.
00:22:21
Speaker
So then we got kind of through the rest of the show, like I was stumbling through because I wasn't. How did the people in the room react? Because I think people enjoyed it. So it wasn't I definitely didn't die. No, well, well, no, it's me explaining. It's me thinking that something is not growing as well as it.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah I wouldn't imagine you'd died because the thing is right and this is I suppose this is the thing that sometimes people don't realise if they've only ever watched stand-up on telly is that things that happen in the room can be hilarious in the room and not make any sense on television or not be interesting to watch or whatever.
00:23:05
Speaker
You know, generally you don't see that. Yeah, well, exactly. You don't see it. Or if you do, it's kind of edited in such a way that you only see the kind of put a narrative to it and they make it. The best thing is that that isn't even the end of the tech issues. Oh, God. So at the end of the show, I I bring us all to a nice, a nice moment. Don't I? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We all come together and some lovely music starts playing.
00:23:36
Speaker
What I was going to say is, you can't do this, but what I was going to say is you should film it again and release both versions.
00:23:45
Speaker
I'm going to release this, other than I might end up asking them to edit out the tech bits. Not all the tech bits. I think the only thing I want them to edit out is the bit that's meant to be The Temptations.
00:24:04
Speaker
because there's nothing in it going next. Whereas when everything else happened, there was something there and that was clear that it was something in the room. But yeah, the rest of it. Yeah, fine.
00:24:22
Speaker
So when you do do that, obviously we'll put it out to the listeners for this. I genuinely think it's something so you can see exactly how things go. Like I say, I know Stuart Lee does his best to illustrate just exactly how things can go wrong in a room.
00:24:44
Speaker
But I think it'd be interesting to see it from someone who doesn't necessarily engineer those things to go wrong in a room. Do you know what I mean? This is genuine chaos. And how you power through and just go, well, I'm not going to learn the fact that my laptop's about to die.
00:25:05
Speaker
So let's segue then very clunkily from that into, we'll jump into 41st best. So obviously we start as ever with the music. I'll tell you what we'll do, and I don't know if I did this last time, but I know I definitely did for stand-up comedian. Just general thoughts from you. Now I know you've seen this one before. This isn't a cold thing, but general thoughts about this is a full piece.
00:25:31
Speaker
Um, so I think I'd only seen like a third of it before maybe. Okay. Um, but I, I really like it. I think it's my favorite of his so far as a full, as a whole thing, because it seems like the one that has the most kind of narrative storyline through line. That's easily followable. The mother with the quilt, the top of the corner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah, because it doesn't even necessarily need to... So the Tom O'Connor bit is highlighting something, but it's not the through line. The through line is, he is in some way, I think, doubting his credentials. Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker
as a stand-up because he hasn't got... I mean, obviously we're skipping ahead, but it's not got the Channel 4 thing. Yeah. Is it the Channel 4 thing? It was BBC that I think offered him a pilot, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it hasn't got the BBC thing. And then that's making him think, oh, well, I'm not
00:26:45
Speaker
that would just automatically do that. And then his mum says that Tom O'Connor is hilarious. And it's actually weirdly kind of, for Stuart anyway, weirdly relatable and what's the word, the observational stuff, but framed in a Stuart.
00:27:13
Speaker
The vibe of this one and the whole conceit of it puts him, for me, in the best
00:27:26
Speaker
It's the best status mix that Stuart Lee, the character, can be, right? Because he comes out trying to be high status. Yeah. But the things that he's saying and the things that have happened to him and kind of the way he's reacting to it, he comes off as low status because he's quite a sad figure. Because he's becoming upset about the fact that, you know,
00:27:52
Speaker
his mum doesn't rate him and his mum just keeps banging on about Tom O'Connor and obviously the reveal at the end that she's not even really talking about Tom O'Connor. There's all these kind of things at play. He's constantly aggrieved by the fact that he's not as well thought of as he wants to be or he's not as well thought of as he thinks he is, despite the fact that he's been selected as 41st best stand-up ever. He makes little jokes about, I'm the only person who regularly performs, for example, in this building.
00:28:21
Speaker
you know like and he's glad of the work you know it's it's that kind of thing where he's like he's constantly reminding us yeah he he wants to be high status but he can't help but tell us what's happening and the things that he tells us make him low status but yeah so obviously we normally sort of talk about the music but i won't dwell upon it so much because it's not that jarring but it does tie into the piece as a whole because it's
00:28:49
Speaker
You know, he talks about the guy coming to festival and performing with the stick insects. It's that piece of music. It's rhythm bugs, I think it's called by a guy called David Rosberg. So that's the music that you hear when he comes in. And it's, you know, it's quite, let's call it settled, you know, compared to some of the other stuff that he's had on, especially in the previous two that we've looked at. So it's not there to kind of unsettle the audience. It's more thematic.
00:29:14
Speaker
But he comes out and, you know, he does the thing about telling them that it wasn't originally going to be called this, but then this thing happened and we're into the show. And it's an interesting conceit, which I quite like, and it goes against, you know, like, you've read Adam Bloom's book, haven't you? No, not yet. All right. OK, fair enough. Well, I won't talk too much about it, but essentially there's a thing that Adam Bloom refers to in his book, which is a great book, by the way. I think it's called... I'm going to get it on Audible, I think.
00:29:39
Speaker
I don't think he's done an audio version of it. Oh, OK. It's just it's just book because it's self published, you see, it's not OK. But anyway, so finding your comic genius, I think it's called. Yeah, that's a great book anyway. But he he referred. He's got a bit that he refers to as he calls it the boom mic moment where you sort of unintentionally, but in Stuart Lee's case, intentionally sort of point out that you're doing a performance.
00:30:07
Speaker
You know, like Brechtian alienation or that kind of thing. He says that if ever a performer on stage refers to something as jokes, like if they use the word jokes or, oh, I like that joke or whatever. You know, like you say, my wife hates that joke.
00:30:26
Speaker
Adam Bloom would refer to that as what's called a boom mic moment which is where in sort of shoddy independent film or whatever you might accidentally see a boom mic every now and again wandering into the frame and he calls those boom mic moments and and Stuart Lee likes to purposefully point out that people are watching a performance and he does that with his first line it wasn't originally going to be called that so straight away he's telling us you're listening to a prepared piece of
00:30:52
Speaker
you know, a prepared piece of stuff. Whereas, you know, the Adam Bloom School of Things is, you know, you come on, you talk to us and you sort of segue around into things. So we're just having a, you know, it's a conversation. Whereas that's just not the way Stuart Lee operates. You know, he does reference Stuart in his book as being someone who intentionally breaks rules and knows why he's doing it.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, if you're going to break rules, you need to know why and what you're achieving for it. Yeah, exactly. And Stuart does, obviously. He knows exactly what he's doing. But he goes into it and he basically says that he appeared in one of these terrible Channel 4 programs that go out on a Friday or Saturday night.
00:31:28
Speaker
countdown of the 100 best things of a thing ever and there were loads of these programs in the sort of 90s and early 2000s and each of this is one of my favorite punch lines in the whole show and it occurs first joke and each one of these things is separated from the next thing by a bold memory from Stuart McCarney which is brilliant because he was in
00:31:51
Speaker
must have been in 20 of these programs. Yeah, I loved them as a kid. Yeah, they were great. And Stuart McConaughey was in all of them. And it's a weird thing because, you know, he was a journalist, he was a DJ. He was never any, you know, he was never particularly associated with any of the things that he was asked to talk about. That's why I like, I prefer, see, I don't know Stuart McConaughey enough.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah. Who find that punchline funny, but the following toppers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make it. Outstanding. Yeah, exactly. So. Because that, it doesn't matter who the person, like the references. Yeah, no, it could have been anyone. You know, and then he says, funnily enough, in the 100 best stand-ups ever, they couldn't, Adam Bloom's in it quite a lot.
00:32:33
Speaker
How is he? He's an amazing figure, Stuart McCone. He's able, if the price is right, to recall almost any aspect of the entire spread of human existence. Because they are so wide ranging, it's not like one specific thing. And that's the park.
00:32:50
Speaker
He was in one's about music, he was in one's about TV, stand up. But yeah, so he calls him an omniscient alien super being a giant baby that lives in space, bald, wearing only a toga, or a bit in the earth, and able to do the entire span of all human culture and existence. And yet tragically, by the creed of his alien race, Stuart McConey is forbidden from ever intervening directly in human affairs. I like the idea that it's by the creed. So he has the ability. Yeah.
00:33:19
Speaker
but he's just not allowed. Yeah, no, of course. He's there coming. I could just solve world hunger. Yeah, exactly.
00:33:29
Speaker
But he can't. He can't intervene.
Humor and Critiques in Stand-up
00:33:31
Speaker
And obviously that's a, I think that's a Marvel reference. You know, I can't remember the name of the particular character, but there is a, I'm sure Stan Lee played a similar character in one of the last films that he was in in the Marvel franchise. But what I was a, um, you know, like one of the, the watcher is, yeah, it's that kind of thing. Yeah, they see everything, but they're not able to do anything.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah, well that's it. That's the reference he's making. And he even says if you didn't get that reference, the show isn't really aimed at you. You might enjoy it. The words, the shapes, but it isn't aimed at you. It's not for you. You're welcome to stay, but it's not for you. Sorry for actualising. Yeah, it's brilliant.
00:34:09
Speaker
He's doing that thing, he's telling the audience, you're not necessarily going to get what you want, but you may as well enjoy the thing that I'm going to give you. He's on this, he was pleased to be placed because he's not a household name, and again, he makes that joke. I'm the only person on the list who regularly plays, for example, in this venue.
00:34:28
Speaker
and he's glad of the work and he does this quite a bit where he makes jokes about his appearance and in this one he refers to himself as a squashed Albert Finney and he says nine years previous the same paper the London Evening Standard described him as a crumpled Morrissey
00:34:43
Speaker
I was going to say, I feel like these are genuine quotes that people have said. But what I'm saying is he leans into it. Later on in his output, you've got the whole let himself go thing. Todd Carty's let himself go. The singer from UB40's let himself go. There's all those ones. A 1930s cartoon of Tarzan's face has let himself go. There's all those.
00:35:12
Speaker
Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. He does a big string of them in Marlboro comedian, it's really funny. But he does this thing, squashed Albert Finney and then he says nine years later crumpled Morrissey and you can see a trend developing, comparing him unfavorably to stocky grain celebrities in terrible states of physical distress. And a squashed Albert Finney is arguably worse than a crumpled Morrissey.
00:35:34
Speaker
Crumpled Morrissey could be straightened out and put to work but has squashed Albert Finney as of no value except as a coaster made of meat or white pudding as you would call it, you've scotch would call it. But yeah so you know he's setting up this whole 41st best thing as like being again one of the one of the sort of wraparound themes of the show and he says about being number 41 you know it's
00:35:59
Speaker
it's quite good but it's you know it's not the best and then he says soon after it was announced Bernard Manning died and he thought he meant he might move up a position but it wasn't the case even with a letter writing campaign to the family and they were distressed if anything saying why why are you doing this please stop just empathizing the idea that he's so self-obsessed yeah that he would actually do that again that's it's such a really great character joke he wouldn't but his character would
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. And he actually says in the book as well, the whole tone and delivery of the line, why are you doing this, please stop. He says he's unconsciously sort of copied it from somewhere, but he's not sure where, and he feels like it's something that the comedian and man, Richard Herring, would have said. Or if those things are true. Yeah. And he says, or if not had said to him on a number of occasions in his everyday life. Because he does, funnily enough, Herring is, have you watched much of Herring's stuff?
00:36:57
Speaker
not all not really to be fair you should check it out he's got a full special i think it's got i think it's called oh frick i'm 50 um because he's really prolific he's put out tons and tons of specials really yeah yeah yeah more so than stewart lee
00:37:13
Speaker
I've listened to a few from like The Lesser Square... The Lesser Square Theatre Podcast. Yeah, exactly. You should check out some of his actual comedy because it's very very good. I really like him but it's very different to Stuart Lee. He's kind of like... We discussed this Eddie and I discussed it in the episode Eddie French when they came and did a little chat in the last episode. They were sort of saying that of the two there was like a
00:37:37
Speaker
they were in the double acts there was the the excitable nerdy kind of um you know hyperactive one really annoying one and then there was the kind of like two school for cool bit of a swap one and Richard Herring was the kind of like hyperactive annoying one yeah you know he was the little kid that hung around with the cool kids saying please like me
00:37:58
Speaker
You know, that's kind of his vibe. But yeah, he's stand up, I really, really like. And he's got one on YouTube for free. And I think it's called Oh Frig, I'm 50. It's very, very good. You should watch it. But then you'll essentially get why Stuart Lee says things like that about him. Because he's very near the knuckle with a lot of his stuff, but it's in a really playful way. It's not in a kind of... He's the kind of person who could
00:38:26
Speaker
go as near to a bigger tree as is possible, but still get by on people really liking him. He's one of those types of people. Like you said to me yesterday, wear a text. What did I say? I can't remember. I'm a generalized person, you're a little evil, can't you? Oh yeah, you are, yeah. No, absolutely. I think you should get that put on t-shirt. Yeah.
00:38:49
Speaker
But yeah, so he's pleased to be placed and he says, you know, but it doesn't really count for anything with his family and his mother's embarrassed about him being a stand-up comedian. It's not something she's interested in, she's interested in quilts. And then he does this whole routine about a quillow, which is obviously a quilt pillow combo. Combo, yeah, so good.
00:39:11
Speaker
which he says comes with its own unique set of problems which if you think about it for a relaxing night you probably need both and then he lingers and doesn't complete the punchline.
00:39:20
Speaker
For me, this is where we go back to that thing when we talk about timing with him. So I can't replicate it and do it justice. I've got my own timing. We've all got our own rhythms and our own timing. I can't replicate his, no matter how hard I try. And he says, for a relaxing night, you probably need both. It looks like he's going to complete the sentence, but he doesn't. And the audience laughed there.
00:39:46
Speaker
Because they already know what he's going to say, so he just doesn't bother. And then he lets it linger to let them laugh, and then he says, you need both a quilt and a pillow, completing the thought. But you're either cold with a comfortable neck, or you warm with backache. And the only solution is to have two quillos, which defeats the unique selling property of the quillow, or alternatively, to revert to the traditional quilt-pillow combo. Again, a really wordy. Beautifully worded. Beautifully worded.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah, you could hear me tripping over it then trying to say it. And this is what I'm saying about timing and cadence and he's so locked into a particular rhythm that he can get around sentences like that with his own cadence whereas like, those mere mortals might just be like, try and actually say the words. But yeah, so...
00:40:36
Speaker
His mum's not impressed by him being a stand-up. She's not bothered that I'm the 41st best stand-up of all time, which I am, remember, they can't take that away now. That's about impressive to my mum, as if I was... Do you think that is, like... What? Sorry. No, go on, you're... That's, like, part of this is him not feeling bad, but actually being, like, taking the Mickey out of himself. Yeah. For really caring. Yeah.
00:41:05
Speaker
about the fact that he's been nominated. Oh yeah he does, of course he does. For my first best stand-up. So like Stuart Lee might not be bothered. Yeah. But Stuart Lee the comedian is. Yeah. And he's kind of propping up how silly he sees it. Well do you know what I think it is? Honestly I genuinely think this whole thing is
00:41:29
Speaker
Stuart Lee, the comedian, let's talk just about the character, right? Stuart Lee, the character. I honestly think with this, he wants people to be impressed by the fact that he's been voted 41st best whilst at the same time being annoyed that he wasn't higher. That's his entire vibe with this thing. He wants you to say, oh, wow, that's great. You're amazing. But he also wants you to say, hang on, you should be number one.
00:41:59
Speaker
or whatever, you know, he's like that. But he wants to have his cake and eat it. That's the conflict, yeah. So he says, you know, to his mother, being 41st by stand-up of all time is about as impressive as if he were to be voted the world's 41st tallest dwarf. Admittedly taller than many other dwarfs, but still essentially a dwarf.
00:42:19
Speaker
Again this is where these punchlines go on and they're so well crafted. As such prohibited by law from applying for any job with a minimum height requirement such as policeman, basketball player or owner operator of an enchanted beanstalk. Yeah yeah.
00:42:34
Speaker
You know, it's a great, it's a well crafted punchline as it is, but it's made better by the topper of him than, you know, explaining to the audience why it's funny. Because again, he sort of says to people, look, I don't do jokes, which he does. Clearly that was a joke. It was a very well crafted joke, admittedly. Yeah, I love it when he says he doesn't do jokes. He 100% does. Especially when he uses that as a punchline.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah. You're literally being disingenuous. I think what he's trying to say is not that he's saying he doesn't do jokes, but what he actually means is, I don't do jokes like all these other plebs do jokes. I do real jokes. I think he's trying to say that he does clever jokes on everyone else.
00:43:18
Speaker
So he does the whole thing where he says about patronisingly explaining to them that owner-operator of an enchanted beanstalk means giant. And he basically says to them, you're going to have to up your game. You can't. And he does this thing that he always does. He throws a bit of his own material under the bus where he says, if you've not seen me before, the jokes are there. But some of you might have to up your game. We'll be all right because there's harder stuff than this in the show. There's a bit that's borderline incomprehensible about insects, even to me.
00:43:46
Speaker
He does this in a few of his shows where he takes a piece of his material or a section of the show and throws it under the bus for comic effect. Because he's reinforcing that thing of it's so, not left field, but it's so good that even I don't understand it. Yeah, exactly. It's not like these other people do jokes.
00:44:09
Speaker
I do jokes and even I do jokes that even I don't understand. It's so clever that I wrote it and I don't get it. It's so clever I wrote it and I don't get it. So he's established the 41st best stuff. He's established the mum with the quilt and the quill-o because these are all things that are going to come back and they're callbacks throughout the show. And then he gets into the Tom O'Connor story where he basically says his mum's already seen the best stand-up she's ever going to see and she's adamant about the fact that it isn't him, right?
00:44:38
Speaker
1970s stroke 80s tv comedy quiz show host of name that tune Tom O'Connor and then he again he does a thing where he sort of the word in here is no one knows who Tom O'Connor is really no one remembers him and that's a shame because i'm now going to talk about him for about 25 minutes
00:44:56
Speaker
which you know it's a bit of a trope of his he does it quite a bit even says that he does it quite a bit in the book but again it's it's that thing of signaling to the audience you're not going to get something that you're going to like but you might as well just take what you've got and you know so she he goes into this thing describing the routine that she sought her muck on and do and this for me is
00:45:18
Speaker
I really like this bit, but it's always a bit that I forget about, so I'm always pleasantly surprised when I watch it again. When he's setting up the Tom O'Connor stuff.
00:45:28
Speaker
And he says, Tom O'Connor has now been performing stand-up exclusively at Sea for so long that he's developed scurvy. But then he sort of throws the joke away and says, my wife wrote that joke. It's not one of mine. Because he sees it as less because it's a more standard feed line, punch line. That's the subtext of it. But the words he actually says, and this is why I love it because there's so much going on, right? He says, it's not the kind of joke I would write. It's got a good rhythm.
00:45:55
Speaker
It's got a conventional sort of rim to it, it's good, but it's not the kind of thing that I would do. And I put it in because it's better than most of what I would do. Right, so again, he's kind of self depreciating, but the subtext of it is, it's a traditional joke, it's not worth. Do you know what I mean? I remember like a peek behind the curtain as well that actually, maybe,
00:46:17
Speaker
He just wants to be a comedian. Stuart Lee, the comedian, thinks that it's beneath him, but Stuart Lee knows that works. No, it's a great joke. No, it's just a great joke. I've kind of got to put it in.
00:46:33
Speaker
But yeah, so his mum saw Tom O'Connor doing Stand Up on a Cruise, and she never stops talking about Tom O'Connor. And again, he goes into this thing, and I think this is one of my favorite things that he does, is when he does the voice of an elderly relative or an older relative. He does this on a few occasions, and this is one really great example where he says, oh, he was amazing, Stu. Take your feet off that quilt. It's not finished. He come out, Stu.
00:46:59
Speaker
He's a comic like you, he come out, Stu, and he does this brilliant thing where he's doing them trying to tell him a story, but they keep losing their train of thought.
00:47:13
Speaker
And it's really clever the way that he does it. I just find it really funny. And he does it all the time, never to better effect than on his infamous rap singers routine, which is in Comedy Vehicle, which we'll get to. But if you've never seen the rap singers routine, please don't watch it until we get a chance to talk about it. Because I guarantee you that you'll know it when it happens.
00:47:36
Speaker
because yeah you'll just know it but it's going to blow your head off honestly if that's an element of his stuff that you really like you will you'll really love it but yeah so he gets into this this sort of rambling conversation with his mother he come out Stu on the cruise Tom O'Connor and he said to this chap in the front row what do you do for a living and the man said that he worked for Esso or Shell or one of them firms
00:48:03
Speaker
Tom O'Connor Stewie was quick. He was quick-witted. He said to him off the top of his head, he said, are you a sardine? It was hilarious, Stu. And then he does this really long pause and he says,
00:48:13
Speaker
I have remembered it wrong, yes. Right, we're just brilliant, because obviously we know, if you've ever sort of stood, and to be fair, we've all done it, when you're trying to repeat a joke that someone else has told you, there's nothing worse than trying to sit there and listen to someone repeat a joke that they've heard. Because when it's not that, do you know what I mean? Are you laughing because you did it about 10 minutes ago? Yeah, it's not my joke.
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah. And it's really hard to explain, like, you know, the reason you find something funny, it very much is that famous saying of you had to be there. Yeah. You know, and the only reason I'm doing it as well. Anyway, so I have remembered it wrong. Yes. Which gets a massive laugh from the audience as well. It should. And there, so there, he's already killed the punchline by saying, are you a sardine?
00:49:11
Speaker
So now when he actually gets the joke correct, he gets a massive laugh from the audience before he gets back to the punchline. Because they already know what it's going to be. You know, he come out to you, don't touch those bits of felt because they're cut into the shape of lions for a jungle scene.
00:49:28
Speaker
He come out, Stu. Tom O'Connor, he's a comic, yes. And he said to this chap, what do you do for a living? And the man said, Stu, he said, I mean oil. And that got a giant laugh from the audience because obviously they already know the response. But he says, one of my favorite things, he says he was quick, like lightning coming out of a dish. And he said to him, are you a sardine? And he wasn't a sardine, he was a man. If he'd been a sardine, it wouldn't have been a joke, would it? It would have been a statement of fact.
00:49:59
Speaker
So again, that there, the rhythm of that there, it would have been a statement of fact. It's a brilliant punchline, but again, it's not a traditional punchline. Some of the stuff that he does in this special is him properly at the top of his game. His mum's trying to tell him that he doesn't understand, but of course he does, because he does comedy, so of course he knows what's what, but she's patronising this end. Look, you don't understand.
00:50:29
Speaker
because partly because like she doesn't understand how much he understands because what he does is comedy so she genuinely must think that he's an idiot or something like he's not good at what he does but
00:50:48
Speaker
He says to my favourite lines in this bit, where he says, he saw the window of opportunity and he hurled himself through it, bodily. He says to him, are you a sardine? Yeah, you're right, Stuart, it doesn't make sense. So this is the other thing, he's told the joke, he's given us all the context that anyone else would walk away from this routine right now. But then what Stuart Lee does here is he starts unraveling the joke for sure why it doesn't work.
00:51:17
Speaker
right where he says to clarify though i do like it what i think the rusardine joke yeah of course it is yeah and but i do think again i think stewart lee does as well because yeah right what you've got to remember is and again i'm going to go back to it i think adam blooms has something very similar in his book i might refer to this once or twice so please forgive me but
00:51:41
Speaker
He said, you know, milliseconds you've got to spend with a joke as an audience. And you make an immediate decision whether or not you find it funny. Yeah, yeah. So a punchline, right? It's a reaction, a split second reaction. You can't help whether you find it funny or not. No, no, it's all to you. And what happens, it doesn't necessarily need to make loads of sense.
00:52:08
Speaker
It just needs to be funny in that particular moment. It needs to be good and obviously it needs to be well structured and all that kind of stuff. It can't just be a load of nonsense.
00:52:19
Speaker
If you sit with it then afterwards, you might pick it apart. Excuse me, you might pick it apart, which is what he does here. An audience is never going to do that. So it is, it's a great job. But he then starts, you know, picking it apart. He says, you're right, Stu, it doesn't make sense, strictly speaking. If you said to us, Adim, what do you do for a living? No, it wouldn't say I'm in oil, you're right. That's not its job. It's swimming around. Yeah, it's not waged. No, it's voluntary.
00:52:49
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? This is what I'm saying, it's the angles that he comes from. It's the angles that he comes from, but also it's that he will follow a path to the nth degree until there's nothing left of it. He will literally pick the bones off of the thing. It's not voluntary, it's wedged. If you were to do this, do you ever use the
00:53:15
Speaker
this sort of, what do they call it? Like a brainstorming type method to write jokes where you put the subject in the middle and then you branch off of it and then you pick one of those branches and you follow that branch. Have you ever done that? No, I don't have any process when it comes to writing jokes. Did you fully form? No, they come to me half formed and then they come to me slightly more formed and then it's like,
00:53:44
Speaker
I shouldn't probably try to do something like that. I did try it and it didn't really work for me that well but I understand the theory behind it but to me it's like he's just following it and then he's branching off again and he's following it and then he's branching off again and he's following it and he's going till there's literally nothing left. He says the only circumstances under which a sardine would reply I'm in oil was if he said to it what substance do you expect to be preserved in for retail purposes in the event of your death?
00:54:13
Speaker
So again, you know, he's turning stuff into a punchline that shouldn't be a punchline. Yeah.
00:54:19
Speaker
And he goes back to it, you know, he come out, Stu, Tom O'Connor, listen, don't touch those pins they're holding the lions on. And he's a comic, he's the same as you. So he's, you know, he drops into this kind of monotonous rhythm and he's compared it to Jaws in the past, which is quite, you know, I think he always kind of says it sounds a bit pretentious, but what he's trying to say is that Jaws has like motifs that it keeps returning to. So even though it fucks around and goes all over the place.
00:54:44
Speaker
It keeps returning to familiar with friends, which is what he's talking about here. So he keeps coming back to me come out Stu You're I mean like that's the root of the routine. He come out Stu You are right Stu. They don't always come in all they can come in tomato sauce But he could have made that work Tom O'Connor could have Stu because he's quick like zephyrus the wind Fucking comes out with something men's shit in this
00:55:11
Speaker
And he would have said to him, if he'd said to them, what'd you do for a living? And the man had worked for Heinz, and he'd said, I'm in tomato sauce. Tom O'Connor could have still said, are you or something? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he'd have done that. He'd have found a way. Yeah, he would have done that. But Stuart Lee couldn't, according to his mother. No, exactly. That's the subtext of this. He could. You couldn't. Oh, yeah, they could come in tomato sauce. I should never have doubted Tom.
00:55:39
Speaker
He carries this on until he gets to the point where he's just stood in the middle of the stage, just saying, and Tom O'Connor said, Stu, are you a sardine? Are you a sardine? Are you a sardine? Are you a sardine? Are you a sardine? Are you a sardine? And he's repeating it over and over and over again. But then obviously he caps that off by saying that what his mother doesn't know.
00:56:04
Speaker
is that since having a nervous breakdown in the 80s, Tom O'Connor has answered any dialogue he becomes involved in with the phrase, are you a sardine? It's just that imagery. Yeah. That's just a sad old Tom O'Connor just repeatedly saying, are you a sardine? Yeah, so it's like what I was thinking about today at school, like as well.
00:56:32
Speaker
talking about metaphors and all these and stuff. And it just makes me think of like, of like that, that like some of the best or some of my favorite jokes aware a comedian's taken a stupid metaphor and just taken it.
00:56:54
Speaker
to a crazy level. Yeah, that it's like, obviously, Stewart Lee does not think that Tom O'Connor responds to every question with, are you a sardine? Yeah, exactly. But that's so funny, because we as audience members, but because we have no other, like, we have to believe it. Yeah, yeah.
00:57:25
Speaker
But you have to be willing to go with him. You have to be willing to go with him. Yeah, you buy it into a thing and this is the thing. And he stretches that to its limit when he then goes on to say that the only other time that Tom O'Connor was right to reply R.U.S.R. Dean was in 1987 when he took his wife on a bargain weekend, her bargain break weekend to Portugal
00:57:54
Speaker
And Tom O'Connor was approached by a small oily fish. Now at this point, obviously the audience know exactly what he's going to do because he's already killed the punchline several times. Yeah, they know where he's going with it. So they're just enjoying doing rather than, you know, trying to work out what the joke's going to be. And he goes into this sort of borderline or potentially these days, potentially borderline offensive caricature of a Portuguese fish.
00:58:23
Speaker
offensive exclusively to Portuguese fish. Yeah, I was gonna say I'm not sure. No, but what I'm saying is, right, so there's a bit of a, you know, for anyone who kind of isn't aware of this, there is a little bit of a
00:58:36
Speaker
what's the word, a discomfort about doing accents these days? Yeah, obviously, there's always kind of been quite rightly so the discomfort around sort of specifically white comedians doing, you know, for example, an African accent or, you know, Asian accents or things like that quite rightly. But they used to be or, you know, it probably it might still be I don't really know, because I'm not one who kind of does accents and stuff. But
00:59:03
Speaker
I've noticed a bit of an uncomfortability in the room sometimes when I've been at a gig and a comedian's done, say, for example, a German accent or a French accent or whatever. And, you know, back in the day, especially like when this type of thing was recorded, it was fairly accepted that, you know, if you were European, you know, you could if you were English, for example, you could do a French accent and kind of poke fun at the French.
00:59:33
Speaker
What's interesting is, if we're talking about when this was, 2008, so more than 15 years ago, I was watching the other day a comedian, I can't remember his name, but he was talking about Chris Rock saying about someone on SNL and I can't remember who it was,
00:59:59
Speaker
that did Blackface being Chris Rock and SNL. And that was perfectly acceptable. Yeah, I mean, maybe it wasn't perfectly acceptable, but it happened on SNL. So even that was like pink comedy
01:00:26
Speaker
kind of like time in and stuff like that, that even that's not acceptable but it's happening. So it doesn't surprise me that I didn't blink an eye at him doing a
01:00:41
Speaker
the accent of a paunchy switch. No, nor did I. Nor did I, to be honest. But the reason I bring it up is because obviously we do comedy and we do comedy obviously at a much lower level than Stuart Lee. And I've noticed a bit of an anxiety in rooms that I've been in when people start doing accents, regardless of kind of what they are. Right, OK. Like it used to be that... Yeah, I've not noticed that, but I've not really noticed anyone doing accents, if I'm honest.
01:01:08
Speaker
Yeah I've seen I've seen it a few times and you know this isn't me sitting here saying people should or shouldn't be able to do accents or whatever it's not for me to say because I'm not from any of these places.
01:01:18
Speaker
But I've just noticed a bit of a change, which is why I kind of wanted to to touch up on it. But anyway, so he does this act out, he stands up on a chair, he puts his hands behind his back and sort of like starts flapping him about to imitate like fins. And I'm not going to attempt to do this sort of voice, not for for the anxiety reasons, just purely because I'm not as good a performer as he is, but I'm not going to do the voice except for the punchline because I think it's imperative. But
01:01:46
Speaker
he sort of goes through this thing. I'm a traditional street festival snack of choice every year in Lisbon on July the 9th, January the 19th, the feast day of Saint Cuff, but I'm also a traditional summer delicacy throughout all of rural Portugal as well. And then he leaves like a really long pause. But the audience know exactly what's going to happen. It's brilliant. It's time to perfection. And then he goes, What am I?
01:02:11
Speaker
It's so good. It's so brilliant. And then when basically when the audience then absolutely erupt, because, you know.
01:02:21
Speaker
they know what the answer to that is. Are you a sardine? But when they erupt in laughter underneath that, you can hear him then say, yeah, that's how they speak. That's how they speak. Yeah, that's exactly that's him basically absolving himself saying I'm not making fun of their accent. That's how they speak. But anyway, so, you know, he goes back to talking about his mum. He's sick of his mum talking about Tom O'Connor. And she, you know, she gets back into he was quick stew.
01:02:48
Speaker
He come out, Stu, you know, and she gets back into that whole kind of like familiar refrain again. Yeah. And Stu, he loses temper. You know, and he basically says, shut up about Tom O'Connor.
01:03:00
Speaker
He's a ludicrous sad absurd figure because his wife sits in the foyer in a little hut made out of plywood and leaves and mud. Selling umbrellas with a picture of Tom O'Connor's face on them and in the stand-up community he's kind of considered a ludicrous figure.
01:03:19
Speaker
And he says this phrase where he says trying to grub up a few more pennies like a pig in the dirt. Yeah. Which is similar to stuff he's done a few times. I don't want to kind of spoil stuff for you, but I don't think it matters as much because we're going to hyperanalyze all this stuff anyway. But 100% sure these are improvised. These little turns of phrase because he does them in almost every show. So the one that springs to mind is in content provider from 2018.
01:03:47
Speaker
which is recorded in South End on Sea, I think, South End Royal. But he he basically said he's doing this bit where he says to the audience, I'm up here like a god and you're down there like pigs in an Essex ditch.
01:04:05
Speaker
And, you know, I don't know how written most of these lines are, but he's got a lot of similar phrases like that. You know, grub up a few more pennies like a pig in the dirt, down there in the dark, like pigs in an Essex ditch. They're quite similar cadences. So he's obviously got like a register and a rhythm that he slips into for improvisation.
01:04:28
Speaker
And he just wants to feel better than the audience. When he's feeling a bit, he just switches to that obvious clichรฉ, but it's a clichรฉ because it works. What he says is, I've heard him say in interviews, and I think it was the Stuart Goldsmith, com-com pod interview, where he said, before each block of work that he does, he has to decide where is the character now.
01:04:54
Speaker
What's his status to the world? Is he riding high on the back of having some TV work or is he down in the dumps at his TV show having been cancelled? Where is he? And that status then gives him an idea of what kinds of things he can talk about. Do you know what I mean?
01:05:13
Speaker
It's great. The Stewart Lee episode, obviously, the podcast itself is brilliant. It's a really good resource, especially a lot of the earlier episodes are really, really good. It's still good now, but it gets more now into like the, I want to say the holistic side of things, like talking about resilience as a comedian and how you deal with certain things. Whereas a lot of the really early episodes, so a few that jump out, there's a Josh Widdicombe one, there's a Gary Delaney one, the Stewart Lee one specifically.
01:05:42
Speaker
The James A. Castor one. The James A. Castor one, where they really get into the nuts and bolts of cows, which they don't touch upon as much anymore. Yeah, the Delaney ones are outstanding. The Delaney ones, brilliant. But the Stewart Lee one, it's, you know, as our episodes are on Stewart Lee, I don't think you can do Stewart Lee in an hour.
01:06:03
Speaker
No. They're two hours long. I think the Stuart Lee one's two hours long. We're not able to. No we can't. Stuart Lee can't either. Yeah. But yeah so that's definitely worth a listen. So yeah so she's out there selling these umbrellas and Stu's mum turns it round on him and says it's not sad because you haven't even got a golf umbrella with your face on it. You know which then obviously drops into this hole
01:06:27
Speaker
tying back into the familiar theme. 20 years in the business, 41st best stand-up, and I go to the Gulf Umbrella comedian marketing manufacturing company. Can I have my face on a Gulf Umbrella? Are you just not getting the figures, son? I just imagine that scene in my head as like a 1970s office inside a factory.
01:06:54
Speaker
yeah like at the top of a factory like a little foreman's cabin yeah yeah foreman's cabin and he's just stood there going can i have and there's this guy with a cigar yeah he's just like he's actually doing something else yeah it's not actually even paying attention to him and he's like
01:07:13
Speaker
You're just not getting the figures son. He's reading page three. Yeah. It was basically all like the wallpaper is just page three. Yeah. He's reading page three and his secretary comes in and he calls her darling. Not even darling. He calls her big tits. Smarter on the arms. He calls big tits. Something we only do our own bladders for.
01:07:38
Speaker
for proper comedians and tell proper jokes. That's the exact character that it is. But yeah, so he drops into this thing, he's feeling sorry for himself and
01:07:57
Speaker
he basically at this point I really like because he kind of he lays it all out in a couple of lines the whole sort of the whole subtext of the show really in a couple of lines here where he sort of says 20 years nothing to show for it and we've just had a little baby that's not cheap you know so that those couple of lines there tell you everything about where the character's at right now yeah you know he's looking at it and he's thinking
01:08:20
Speaker
Okay, brilliant. I've been selected as 41st best. I want everyone to be happy about that, but I'm not happy about that because I think I should be higher. Then also, I've just had this baby. I've been selected as 41st best, but what does it actually mean? It's not doing me any favors. I've still got no money.
01:08:38
Speaker
You know, what does it mean in real terms? It means nothing. Which he then segues into doing a whole routine about television. You know, he basically says, where was this list? It was on Channel 4 on television, the worst television station in Britain. Who's realised we'll probably... Say bye to them wanting to show this. Yeah, who I realise probably won't be buying this for transmission. You know, and again, they're like fun little improvised decides, oh, there's another potential market gone.
01:09:07
Speaker
But then he says, and he's got a great joke, which he repeats visually in comedy vehicle. In this routine, he's got a great joke where he says Channel 4 is like a vat of sewage.
01:09:22
Speaker
coming through the television into your living room. Whereas E4 is as if you've developed a sluice to let it unbid and into your home or something like that. That's the sort of general gist of it. As we say, you can't really repeat other comedian's jokes because it just doesn't work. But yeah, so then he starts talking about obviously Channel 4 used to be good.
01:09:43
Speaker
20 years ago, 25 years ago, and now it's like a syphilitic old man looking at all the society beauties. He used to romance and all of them are now dead because of him. But he, and then he does a brilliant sort of character joke against himself where he says, you know, I don't, I don't really, I don't really like television. I don't, you know, nothing against the medium. It's great. It's just colours, lights, shapes and sounds. God knows we all love them.
01:10:06
Speaker
and then obviously takes a takes an opportunity to have a go at the room because they didn't laugh at that so he's like obviously they don't like them you know yeah they don't like them over here they like them one at a time altogether it's a bit much but yeah he says he says the problem with television it's not capable of dealing with with serious issues which takes him into the celebrity big brother racism scandal routine
01:10:31
Speaker
about an Indian woman in the house and everyone picking on her and he said he was kind of fascinated by it because it showed out television can't you know cut with serious stuff and he loves the celebrity big brother racism scandal for three main reasons he uses a phrase in this where he says um the bad racism yeah which i really like because it implies there's a good racism
01:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's his way of clarifying that he's not racist. Yeah. By saying racism is bad. But without saying racism is bad, just saying the bad racism. But he's also like, intentionally, obviously, because everything he does is intentional. But yeah, he's sort of intentionally then shot himself in the foot or shot the character in the foot. Because it makes it sound as if there is some racism that he thinks is acceptable.
01:11:20
Speaker
yeah this is bad racism i would be i would be interested to know actually yeah if he would say that everything he does is intentional all right well i suppose what i'd clarify that with and this is purely just from listening to so many interviews with him but he would probably and i'm preempting what i think he would say yeah yeah obviously i can't speak for him because i don't know him one day am i ask him yeah maybe i'll be my one question is everything you do intentional stew
01:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think I would say that. Do you reckon? Yeah. Either that or can I open for you on your next talk? He doesn't have support. I know. That's why. Not anymore, anyway. I think he did at the time this talk was happening, actually. He used to have people like Josie Long and Henning Venn and whatnot. Oh, nice. But I think I'd just drop to my knees and say, please teach me. I'm glad you finished that sentence, though.
01:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, I did think about using a different phrase, but I thought, no, fuck it. Yeah, no, that's fine. But no, so like, I think that what he would probably say is it might not start out as intentional, but it certainly becomes intentional. By the, you know, by the time it's filmed and all that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, he said so many times, nothing's a genuine improvisation by that point. Yeah, I suppose, I suppose you're right. I suppose it's that we've never got to the level of him, but also the level of
01:12:46
Speaker
like the amount of reps that he has. Yeah. Doing it like my show that I've done for what 18 months? Yeah. I've done probably what he would do in a month. Well, what anyone would do in a month in Edinburgh. Yeah. You know, we've probably done our thing 30 times. Yeah, it's over the course of 18 months.
01:13:10
Speaker
But the difference is obviously when you're that level, you know, if you book it, people will show up. Yeah, that's the dream. Yeah, exactly. So you're not necessarily worried about losing money, whereas if we book it, we have to pray people will show up and we have to pay upfront to book it, which we can't really afford to do anyway.
01:13:29
Speaker
So yeah, anyway, that's by the way. So he loved this Celebrity Big Brother Racism scandal because the official sponsors, the Carphone Warehouse, were contractually obliged to issue the following genuine press statement. Racism is entirely at odds with the values of the Carphone Warehouse. And he sort of incredulously sort of says, I was hugely relieved to read that press statement because prior to that, I suspected that the Carphone Warehouse was in front, in fact, a front for a white supremacist organization.
01:13:59
Speaker
car phone warehouse. The car phone warehouse. The car phone warehouse. Which, as we know, is a bit of a digger, Ed Byrne, who used to do the adverts for car phone warehouse. Yeah. Interestingly, that impression of Ed Byrne is so bad that it doesn't actually, it's not actually offensive to like,
01:14:22
Speaker
Irish accents. No and I think that's kind of the point. I think it's there to be a little thinly veiled, we know what it is but it's not necessarily you know. But then he sort of lists what he suggests the values of the car farm warehouse might be and he does the sort of trope of pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket
01:14:43
Speaker
and repeats again repeats the phrase the true values of the gaffe phone warehouse the true values of the gaffe phone warehouse and then he says sell phones sell more phones deny the holocaust yeah right which obviously you know standard kind of rule of three stuff but yeah because it's shooately he doesn't stop there no you know and then he goes back to sell more phones deny the holocaust again this time by texting your mates
01:15:13
Speaker
lobby for the return of the gollywog in the black and white minstrel show and then just like goes off on one cell phone cell phones to cars sell as many phones quickly sell the phones sell cell phones my favorite is the cell phones to cars yeah exactly yeah like the cars are the ones buying the phones i mean i'm saying that as if people don't understand that that's what that means
01:15:39
Speaker
thanks for explaining that yeah oh these comedy insights if we weren't here damn oh jeez we're gonna be comprehensible honestly mate we're gonna be millionaires on the back of this gold dust aden bloom better watch out
01:15:57
Speaker
But yeah, he says the sheer transparent naked hypocrisy of even imagining for a moment that such things exist as the values of the car for a warehouse. And this is a great little joker. He says, do you, do you follow the values of Jesus or Buddha or Marx? No, I follow the values of the car warehouse. Then he sort of starts to theorize. And again, this is, you know, this is a fairly
01:16:20
Speaker
Anyone who's interested in doing comedy could look at this, and there's a guide here for how to write a joke. We've talked about this before, but if you step back and look at it, he's established his premise, he's done the initial joke, he's done a topper, and now we see him where else he can push it.
01:16:45
Speaker
So he's asking questions and the kind of the, you know, one of the most fertile ways for writing jokes is to look at the thing that you're writing about and ask a what if style question.
01:16:56
Speaker
Yeah. And that's what he's done here. So he says, at what point do you think that it was the car phone, that the car phone warehouse decided that Big Brother was no longer compatible with their values? Was it three series ago and Channel 4 broadcast live footage of a clearly inebriated 20 year old woman inserting the neck of a wine bottle into a vagina? You know, did the car phone warehouse go, yes, at last random objects inserted into drunk women?
01:17:20
Speaker
a brand much made in heaven i do remember that and it's it's not yeah i do as well i can't remember but i'm fairly sure they were all playing poker naked or something yeah yeah i think and then oh it's like true for dare it was it it was in like the i think they went to the jacuzzi was it king i remember that thinking was yeah is that the thing that she's famous for i think so but like
01:17:51
Speaker
The whole thing about that is obviously he's mocking Big Brother as well as the Carphone Warehouse. Then it's like actually what they've done is they've put a load of volatile people, generally people with
01:18:06
Speaker
Quite a lot of mental health issues maybe because that's what generates good telly. Put them into a very confined space, put a lot of cameras there and then are victimising the people.
01:18:22
Speaker
They're essentially like scientists mocking mice that they have like injected with whatever it is and then they've done what they expected it to do.
01:18:39
Speaker
It's weird, isn't it? Oh, that's horrible. Why have you done that? They're just social experiments. Well, they are a little bit, but their primary focus is to make money. Yeah, of course it is. But essentially, the reason they are social experiments is because the whole point of it is to see what happens when you put these mad people together. But the reason for doing that is to make money.
01:19:07
Speaker
yeah you know anyway then he goes on and says um the second great thing about the celebrity big brother racism scandal was that there was a program on called big brother's big mouth or big big brother's little brother and i can't remember which one that is whether it i'm sure there's both versions of that exist or have and he says it's on e4 and this is where he does the joke that i was talking about um it's worse than channel four because it's like a flood of channel four is like a flood of sewage that comes unbidden into your home whereas e4
01:19:36
Speaker
It's like you've constructed a sluice to let it in.
01:19:40
Speaker
Which I don't really get that joke, if I'm honest. Why? What's it trying to say? It's trying to say that Channel 4, right, Channel 4 at the time, obviously it's a terrestrial TV channel, so it's one of your five options. Yeah. Or whatever. Whereas E4, you've gone out of your way to find it. Do you know what I mean? You've bought subscription television. E4 will have been on Sky or whatever.
01:20:07
Speaker
You know, you don't just get... I think I'm free view, but maybe there wasn't a free view at the time. And that's the thing, I think you need to look at the stuff in this as though it's 2008. And it's quite difficult to do that sometimes because you forget what it was like. Yeah. You know, like the car phone warehouse generally, you know, you wouldn't even think of the car phone warehouse anymore. No, I don't even know. I don't know when they...
01:20:35
Speaker
they disappeared no well i don't either because i'm clearly dead you know i've bought contracts from them but anyway so big brother's big mouth big brother's little brother it's on e4 and then he's you know he sort of basically does this joke and he says that again another potential market disappeared just the paramount channel left then they've been good to us in the past and he says that on e4 and on these behind the scenes programs they they have like experts coming in to provide insight into
01:21:02
Speaker
what he calls the phenomena of some twats in a place. Yeah. Which is what we were saying, you know, they just put some twats in a house. Yeah, yeah. And see what happens. And that it's hosted by Russell Brand. Yeah. Now, obviously, with 2024 eyes on, there's way more subtext to the Russell Brand stuff than there was in 2008. Although I question whether or not a lot of people knew what he was like anyway.
01:21:29
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? You don't ask that question. Yeah, definitely. But, you know, shortly he's gone after him a couple of times. Enough to sort of make you wonder.
01:21:44
Speaker
were the industry kind of aware. Well, yeah, I mean, look at Savile, so. Yeah, exactly. Not really surprising. But he says that it meant that Russell Brand was contractually obliged to look meaningfully into the camera making a serious face and condemn racism in the strongest terms possible whilst dressed as a cartoon pirate. Yeah, I forgot that that's how it and when I watched that, I was like,
01:22:10
Speaker
I'd forgotten that that's how he treads. Because now obviously, I mean now, like a few years ago when he had his epiphany and he was walking around in only socio-economically sound sandbags or whatever he was wearing. It's not the greatest joke, is it? Let's be honest. It's a weird thing though, because he seems to have gone through this evolution from being
01:22:38
Speaker
like a dandy playboy in the early 2000s who would just like literally take loads of drugs and shag anything that moved. And be very brazen about it on telly as well. It wasn't just like, oh, in their private life. Yeah, no, he did jokes.
01:22:57
Speaker
He did jokes about trying to make women choke on his penis. Whenever he was on something like Graham Norton or something like that, he would just be like, all I can think of when I think of Russell Brand is the word shag. Because I feel like I've heard, there's only two people really that I've heard say the word shag.
01:23:23
Speaker
Austin Powers and Russell Brand. The rest of them are teenagers that I know. The thing is, right, that and Carpet Salesman. Sorry, that was a terrible joke. Sorry.
01:23:41
Speaker
to any listeners out there. That is that is the level that I operated on. That is the level that I operate. I apologize. You just pulled the rug under me. That is a rug pull moment, isn't it? Yeah. But yeah, like I can't help it now whenever Russell Brand seems to have gone through this evolution from being like, like I say, dandy playboy shag anything that moves, you know, what Stuart Lee calls his cartoon pirate phase. Yeah.
01:24:09
Speaker
through like some sort of weird spiritual guru, which I assume is like the sandbag shit that you were talking about. Now into like this segue into sort of right wing grift conspiracy theory. Yeah. It's, it's such a bizarre, he seems to just go wherever the zeitgeist is. Exactly. Like to me, that's just an act.
01:24:34
Speaker
like you know early 2000s Russell Brand late night late 90s early 2000s Russell Brand was like androgyny was kind of like in yeah you know and and he was sort of on the tail end of that kind of brick rock and he could he could get away with because he could with that kind of stuff he was heroin chic like yeah and like and and this was the time when like i was reminded of it a few weeks ago from like facebook or something this was the time when
01:25:02
Speaker
soccer am was on telly i mean it only stopped recently yeah but like the old soccer am where they would if did you ever watch it yeah did you a lot yeah so you'll know and for those of you that especially maybe in the
01:25:21
Speaker
our international listeners might not get this. It's a football TV show where they had analysis and fun stuff. They had a thing where they would bring out a female football fan, but each week they'd have a certain team's supporters.
01:25:44
Speaker
they'd have like a little kind of terrace thing for them to all sit on and they were like four levels and they're all just in their football shirts and they'd constantly go to them for like analysis or what they think about certain stuff and then they'd have a this poor young girl usually between the ages of 17
01:26:09
Speaker
and 20 or 21 maybe. I think the highest that they would go is 21. And they would come out in the football shirt and shorts, and they'd go, oh, what's your name? And she'd be like, oh, Cherise. I don't know. I can't think of any names. And they'd go, hey, hey. And how old are you?
01:26:38
Speaker
And depending on what her answer was, if she was 18 or over,
01:26:46
Speaker
they would all shout, great age, great age. If she was under the age of 18, they would go, oh, awful age, horrible age. And I remember seeing that and laughing at that when I was 16. That's funny. And then watching it a few weeks ago, I was like,
01:27:14
Speaker
He cringed. This was on telly? Yeah, this was allowed. But that's when Lund was doing his kind of thing so he could happily kind of... Listen.
01:27:24
Speaker
Right, I don't care what society says, right? I'm not interested in what society says because it's very easy to sort of turn around and have a moral opinion on stuff, right? But we were all alive when this happened and we all endorsed it. Yeah, yeah. 100%. Right? They were, you know... I bought Nuts and Zoo magazine. Yeah, same, right? You can't... Once with pennies.
01:27:51
Speaker
You know, when you've only got pennies and you really really need to rub one out.
01:28:02
Speaker
the poor shopkeeper's face as I count it out ยฃ1.60 or whatever it was yeah the sadness the sadness of it now is that anybody wanting to buy a gropmag now yeah they can just contact us
01:28:21
Speaker
uh well you just go online and find it but oh yeah true that you know nuts and zoos don't exist anymore no for good for good reason for good reason you know like do you remember that do you remember that time and i'm gonna laugh at this just because of the sheer audacity of it i no way endorse any of the things that were said but do you remember the one where danny dyer used to do a letters column
01:28:46
Speaker
for one of them. I can't remember what it was. That's amazing. But I love old school Danny Dyer. It was awful, right? Because this was like peak football factory Danny Dyer, like proper Cockney wide boy, right? Yeah. And somebody wrote in, I can't remember the exact
01:29:03
Speaker
thing somebody wrote in and basically said my girlfriend was really revealing outfits when we go out blah blah blah blah blah she keeps getting hit on what do i do about it and danny dyer's genuine answer was to stripe her up i don't know what that means yeah when i tell you what it means your face is going to change right because he said you want to stripe her face up right which essentially means slasher on the face
01:29:32
Speaker
Right, see? That face, that's what I was looking for. You guys won't be able to see this. Yes, he did not. Yeah, he did, yeah. You guys will not be able to see this, right? But Joe's face is incredulous, right? He cannot believe that this was ever a thing. Now, quite rightly, Danny Dario was called out for this. Good. But what I'm saying is,
01:29:55
Speaker
they published it there yeah they did yeah what i'm saying is back in those days it took danny dyer saying it endorsing the slashing of women's faces something like that for people to speak out and say hang on i think we're going a bit far here so as a society you know we can't suddenly have a high horse now it's great that we're trying to move forward but you have to acknowledge the fact that we all played a part in it
01:30:25
Speaker
So getting back to what we were supposed to be talking about, because we got a bit sidetracked by 2000s misogyny there. Oh, what a fun time we had before the works turned up. But yeah, whenever I think of Russell Brand now, all I think about is this routine.
01:30:43
Speaker
aside from the horrible stuff that he's done recently but because he's the way that Stu phrases it is so brilliant he says that his life's work is thinking up cutesy diminutive Mr. Men Nimes for his own penis which is it Mr. Wingy and Mr. Dinky Mr. Dingy Dongy Dinky Wookie Wah you know and you can tell that's improvised because it kind of just trials off and goes nowhere
01:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, because the whole point is that Mr. Winky is, will be something that Russell Brand's actually used. A hundred percent. But then the rest, it's sort of, it's irrelevant what it is. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. It's just him adding texture. But, and then he, one of my favorite jokes of the whole thing is that when he says, and the way Russell Brand thinks up cutesy diminutive Mr. Men names for his own penis makes him sound like a child molester who is trying to convince himself to allow himself to molest himself.
01:31:39
Speaker
Which is a fucking brilliant joke, right? Yeah. Again, to all of the kind of new open spot comedians out there, that's how you do a pedo joke. Yeah. Right. You can't just say your new or I say new new because I didn't know. Yeah, because you're not saying your new non-stroke.
01:32:05
Speaker
is one of my favourites. Really? Of all time. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Because I was looking at it and I was watching and without ruining it. But I was like, if what I hope happens happens, then great. If not, I'm going to write it. And it did. It has to happen. So what you're saying is you saw it coming. Yeah, I saw it coming. But much like Stu,
01:32:32
Speaker
signposting the the punchline and killing the punchline it made it better for me because i was like i know the punchline and i don't know if other people do yet right here's here's what i'll say about that bit without saying too much about it because i don't want to give it away because it's in my new show exactly but i'm confident that because that that routine when i first started doing it people don't
01:33:01
Speaker
They start to get into it a little bit, but I know full well that no matter what happens, I will get them with that bit. Do you know what I mean? It's that thing of like, I know full well that I've got this coming up. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you've got a few stragglers, but that bit, everyone's on board.
01:33:20
Speaker
But I'm not, you know, I'm not going to start sort of tooting my own horn in that sense, but the reason that I tried to do it that way and the reason I personally believe it's a better way to do that kind of joke.
01:33:34
Speaker
is because it's making fun of the shit version of that kind of joke. Exactly. And that's why I enjoyed it. Do you know what I mean? As well, because it's like it's the whole like, you know what I mean, but the whole point is it's irrelevant. Right. But what I will go on record as saying is right. And I will say this because I genuinely believe this. I think we mentioned earlier in the episode about this this trend now for comedians trying to be like Paul Smith, right? Yeah. But I just want to caveat with the fact that
01:34:02
Speaker
Paul Smith's brilliant.
01:34:05
Speaker
Right. I do genuinely think Paul Smith's incredible. Very good. He's very, very good at it. Right. But you can't copy him. No, exactly. You just can't. Right. You can't take anyone without. But you certainly can't copy someone like him who's kind of like persona is so strong and so established. And so like he has worked for 10, 12, 15 years to become the person that he is now as an open spot. You can't then come up, add the word nonce to a joke and think you Paul Smith just doesn't
01:34:35
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? That's not how it works. Similarly, that you wouldn't be able to go up and do his sort of material if a joke didn't work. You wouldn't do that.
01:34:51
Speaker
or like some people there and then team A and team B and some people are gonna have to up your game. Imagine doing that and open mic, destroy your own career. And talking to any French in the previous episodes, that's what it's like. You know, round this time and sort of early 2010s.
01:35:12
Speaker
You know, Eddie was saying you couldn't move. You couldn't move on the circuit for Mini-Stew, at least. You know, because he's always like, guys, there's always something that everyone's kind of doing. But I think what's happened is that his influence now is still there very strongly, but it's kind of not as to the fore now.
01:35:31
Speaker
No, because of social media, like Paul Smith is, I don't want to say better known than Stuart Lee, but I would probably say. He is by a certain demographic of people. Yeah, in the mainstream. Absolutely. My stepdad sends me Paul Smith reels. Brilliant. Have you seen this guy?
01:35:57
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, yeah, he's brilliant. Yeah, my parents do actually as well. My wife loves him. My wife thinks he's brilliant. And so do I. But what I will say about Paul Smith, right? And I think people do him a disservice in this sense is that people think he's just crowd work because that's what all these videos are. Oh, no. Yeah. But he has got an incredible routine about taking DMT.
01:36:18
Speaker
which is so good it's so good so you know anyone out there who thinks Paul Smith is just crowd work please please watch one of his routines because he's more than that so yeah he's he's thinking up cutesy missed back to Russell Brand he's thinking up cutesy missed him in there for his own penis
01:36:37
Speaker
And then she says, and then when Martin Luther King saw racism in 1960s America, Martin Luther King called it out in the strongest, most visionary, eloquent terms possible. He said, I have a dream that my four-year-old little children, my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And when Russell Brand saw racism in his place of work, Big Brother, Russell Brand said, ooh.
01:37:07
Speaker
right it's very good right listen that noise to this day remains the single funniest thing right and that's not to do any of the material the disservice right but i've seen this special 50 times i really like it it's got some of my favorite stewart lee jokes in it i've seen it so many times that is the the bit that i always look forward to the most just that noise
01:37:34
Speaker
Because noises like that are so visceral that you don't need to think to find it funny, it just is. It's the tone of it, the timing, everything about it. And I know what I'm doing here is I'm analysing a man, a 40-year-old man making a noise with his mouth, right?
01:38:01
Speaker
It's weirdly such a good embrace. It's pitched perfectly. But yes, like whenever, again, whenever I think of Russell Brand, I think of that amazing pedo joke that Stuart Lee did about him, but also of that noise. I hear that noise whenever I hear Russell Brand, but he does that. Ooh.
01:38:19
Speaker
that there's been some bad racism and stuff going down today. I'm no mistake, my liege. Which is such a fucking brilliant observation about
Controversial Figures and Language in Comedy
01:38:32
Speaker
Russell Brand. He will use ridiculous words like this. Yeah, to make himself sound intelligent. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm not saying he's not intelligent. And also far too many syllables. Yeah. Rude.
01:38:46
Speaker
yeah but if there's uh if there's anybody you can't anybody you could level it using far too many syllables it's stewardly no but at least he uses the right ones in the words oh yeah of course he does yeah he doesn't put syllables in that aren't there yeah yeah exactly which is what Russell Brand does yeah it made mr winky go right small it has but then he says my ball bag my old ball bag has only gone up my bum
01:39:16
Speaker
What I love about this as well is that the way he sees Russell Brand is that when he detects racism as if he's found it, but when he's abhorred by racism, the feeling is
01:39:37
Speaker
of him being sexually unaroused, then it's not that like in your heart you're broken or like. No, it just turns him off. Yeah, he only expresses emotion sexually, like he can't think of any other way. I mean, you know, not that I advocate, I certainly don't advocate racism in any shape or form, but. This is gonna be good.
01:40:09
Speaker
I'm just gonna yeah that is that is like the ultimate way of saying I'm not racist but I'm just gonna let that hang for a second so people can feel really uncomfortable but no what I was gonna say is I certainly do not advocate racism however given that it apparently turns Russell Brandoff sexually every cloud
01:40:36
Speaker
All I'm saying is if racism is bad, all I'm saying is if anybody ever finds themselves stuck in an uncomfortable situation. Are you trying to say if Russell Brand's trying to rape you, you should say something racist. You should have like a Russell Brand rape alarm that just says the n-word.
01:41:07
Speaker
And then it'll make his Winky, Mr Winky, go right up himself it will. Right, listen, I'm not saying that that's what people should do. I'm just saying that's the subtext of this routine. Right, we'll just have a quick pause while Joe dies. Yeah. His hedge from steps. Have you found out recently that
01:41:37
Speaker
They're doing a steps musical about the band. I'd rather watch a musical about some actual steps.
01:41:58
Speaker
I think there is a musical about that. It's called The 39 Steps. Oh God, Alcoholics Anonymous has added more these days.
01:42:14
Speaker
Oh, God. I'm on one today, Joe. I'm sorry. But yeah, anyway, so let's move on before we die of, I don't know, whatever silliness this is. And, you know, then then he sort of gets into this whole bit about Danielle Lloyd, who arguably was the most racist person. And it's funny because, you know, obviously we were just talking about Nuts and Zoo and stuff. And he says, presumably, you know, because she lost loads of lucrative glamour modeling work, presumably the editors of Nuts magazine and Zoo magazine,
01:42:43
Speaker
must have sat around and tried to decide whether their readers would feel comfortable masturbating over images of a racist. I can confirm that that would not. It wouldn't have put me off as a 16 year old no chance. I didn't watch the news, I wouldn't have even known about it. No, I didn't watch Big Brother, so I wouldn't have had a clue. And to be honest, even if I had, as Stuart Lee said, I would have given it a good old go.
01:43:10
Speaker
And to be fair, I don't think Daniel Line was on my list anyway. No, I don't know. But yeah, just the way he kind of phrases it, where he says they'd push through whatever ethical barrier the racism of the naked woman presented with them and, you know, giving it a good old go. And the wrongness of it may have created an extra sexual friss off. And this is a really a little throwaway line, which I really love because it just didn't
01:43:37
Speaker
He just kind of chucked it out there. He said, we can't really know without carrying out a controlled experiment. There's no money for that now.
01:43:44
Speaker
Not with the Olympics coming up. He moves on then obviously and gets to the nub of the routine where he basically says he's got some, you know, there is theoretical exceptions to television, but the real reason he hates television is because it's been getting on for 12 years since they've commissioned anything that he's written. Yeah. So again, you know, it's back to the subtext of how the character's feeling. Yeah. What he's aggrieved about, what he's upset about.
01:44:09
Speaker
And then he gets into this little routine, which he says he's going to sit down for. It's like a Ronnie Corbett monologue. And he starts talking about how, you know, at this point you've been doing it for about 20 years. And he talks about this seven year cycle of being fashionable. It's good that it's so regular because I can plan expensive medical crises around it. You know, so he says that just on the downturn of that, that cycle now, which again is reestablishing his status.
01:44:38
Speaker
He's basically saying, yes, I am critically acclaimed and all that kind of stuff, but don't forget, you do still need to feel sorry for me because these days I'm not that critically acclaimed, essentially. And he says he got asked in to see, they had a BBC two, which is weird because normally they have to kind of like beg. But he asked me in, he does an impression of the commissioner of BBC two. And he says, we're all very excited about your work, whatever it is.
01:45:06
Speaker
which is really brilliant because it's so crazy, so intellectual that they don't even, in his head, I don't think obviously they didn't say that. Well again, I think the subtext of it is that that's essentially what TV people are like. It's a case of, yeah, yeah, we're big fans of your work because we think it'll make us some money. You know, yeah, we don't, we don't necessarily know what any of it is, but. Yeah, they don't even need to like it. No, do they? They just need to know there's an audience for it. Which is true. Like,
01:45:34
Speaker
It's true of any creative industry. So he basically starts saying that he wants to do six half hours of stand up, fairly straightforward, like the old Dave Allen shows. Have you ever watched any Dave Allen? No. You should check it out. He's got a routine about telling the time, which is
01:45:51
Speaker
just incredibly well written. It's so good. And if you watch sort of some of these Dave Allen routines, you can kind of see where, you know, Stuart Lee takes the inspiration from. He's very slow, considered, and you know what I mean? You can see the influence. Yeah, he says he wants to do six half hours like the old Dave Allen shows. And they said to him, you can't. You don't need to try out. Get on with it. You know, so he left this meeting. His whole life had been completely transformed professionally, financially.
01:46:20
Speaker
And he started writing the series and he wanted to do it where he says, I'd do a bit where I did a bit of stand up to a weird group of people in an odd place and I'd film it. So I wrote a set that would work really well for little kids. And it was about how when I was a kid, my mum said, eat your greens. And I didn't. And I got smaller and smaller and smaller and then got carried off by a bird, which is a funny, it's a funny concept, funny image. The audience don't go for it. And then he just chastises them for, you know, he basically says to them, it's not aimed at you, it's aimed at children.
01:46:50
Speaker
You know, he sort of has a goal. Yeah, it is. I think it's a really funny, funny little thing, but he tries to justify it to the audience. And then he tells this little story about doing a kid's party. And he says this thing that I think about often, especially when I get heckled. His kids are really funny, because they don't heckle. But what they do is they put their hands up and you have to decide whether you accept the heckle, which is a great system.
01:47:19
Speaker
As someone who works in education, particularly in secondary education, that is not true. Yeah, but I think he's talking about smaller kids. Yeah, yeah. Primary school, maybe. Yeah. Secondary. No.
01:47:32
Speaker
But yeah, so he says that it's a good system, you know, having to decide whether to accept the heckle. So he's doing this kid's party and the little girl puts her hand up and she says, if you were so small, then why are you so fat now? You know, he said, so I said to her and he got really soft with his voice. He said, well, I may be fat, but at least I've got some pubic hair. You know, he starts shouting at the audience about 20 years of road harden skills.
01:48:02
Speaker
the old skills kicked back in. This is just knee jerk reaction. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's it. And, you know, I ended up doing this at your at your show when I opened it was the knee jerk reaction. I don't know. I think you I think you handled it how you should. I don't know. I look back on it and I kind of think I don't think she was being malicious. Oh, no, I don't think I don't think many, many colors are malicious.
01:48:33
Speaker
I think it was the tone that I used when I told her she had quite a mouth on her that was the problem. It was quite aggressive. It was quite an aggressive tone, which I looked at it and I think I probably won't do that again. I think it's fine. I'm saying this, I would 100% do it again. You didn't do it on the first kind of rabble. I think they were given plenty of opportunity.
01:48:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, ignore her a few times. Especially because they still talked even when Saul actually kind of said to them. Shut up. We're recording this, so don't talk. Yeah. And they still did. Like, to be fair, quieter, so hopefully it's not picked up on the recording. Have you watched it yet, just out of interest? No, because it's being edited properly before I see it. Fair enough, fair enough.
01:49:23
Speaker
much like I'm gonna have to do to this to stitch all of our attempts together.
01:49:29
Speaker
Like a Frankenstein. I'm going to have to explain this. Frankenstein's monster, should I say? Frankenstein's monster, not Frankenstein. I'm going to have to explain this away in the intro. But yeah, so he said then the other thing I wanted to do, I wanted to do a parody of observational comedy. He said, so obviously you, the audience here at the stand, you see lots of comedy, you'll know what observational comedy is. Comedy is when the comedian pretends to have the same life as you.
01:49:56
Speaker
I regard. Rather than being a philandering coke addict. Which I love, and I do wonder who he had in mind when he said that joke.
01:50:06
Speaker
yeah because he must have had someone in mind yeah and then he does this this sort of act out this impression of observational comedy which i think i remember you said is one of your favorite bits in this it's my whole favorite bit right okay fair enough where he says oh who's married who's married who's got a girlfriend who's ever seen a woman you've seen them you said a photo of one you know what they are you've seen them around not men with the hair you know
01:50:32
Speaker
Are there any... Yeah, it's the insect one that I like. Yeah, but he needs this to set it up. This is what I'm saying. That's the really clever thing about this is that he basically establishes the rhythm of observational comedy, albeit heightened and shit and whatever, like purposefully. Which is why it's funny. But then when he obviously gets into the insect bit, you get it instantly because it's the same rhythm.
01:51:02
Speaker
you know girls answer me this why do you take so long to get ready what's going on we can't ask them yeah but then he sort of quickly drops that and says who's got kids that's finished that bit who's got kids
01:51:20
Speaker
You know, they're all the same. Yeah, you've got a two year old. I've got a 15 year old. They're all the same. It's the same. It's the same. Some of the things he said, they're mad. It's hilarious. It's like you can only understand the world from the perspective of a child.
01:51:35
Speaker
Although I did see one of the funniest videos and I will send it to you of a panto from the front row. A mum on the stage. It's so good. So good. Oh, I love kids. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, you're on about the one where he says something like, you know, do you ever use? Do you ever use bad words like bar and humbug? Yeah. And the kids shout out. She says fuck's sake.
01:52:05
Speaker
But the best part here, do you know what the best part of that whole video for me is the bit where you see the performer, the guy dressed in the elbow costume or whatever. Yeah, the mask drop. You just see him instantly go, oh, dear, you have my sympathies. Like, you know, yeah, the mask drops and even says, we've all been there. Like, you know, it's such a recognisable thing where he's trying to stay in character, but then he has to sort of drop out to sort of say to this woman, look,
01:52:35
Speaker
don't worry about it I understand it's fine and everyone here will find it hilarious well everyone did I mean you know I mean the audience goes mad and obviously the video has gone viral um but yeah so he ends this route he ends this little bit it's like they can only understand the world from the perspective of a child yeah which is then obviously mirrored you know when he gets to the the the insect bit but yeah he sort of stops this routine and says I've got a terrible feeling there's some people at the back say now he's cooking
01:53:06
Speaker
that's what most audiences want is that kind of like shit you know why do they take so long to get ready women if only we could ask them so he's looking for the best way to do a parody of observational comedy and he says the best way to do a parody of observational comedy is to do it from the point of view of an insect about being an insect whilst dressed as an insect yeah
01:53:25
Speaker
And then he does that, you know, he mirrors the routine again, but this time doing it as an insect, right? Who's killed a grasshopper? Come on. We've all done it. We've all been there, haven't we? Friday night, we've all done it. There's a bloke down there laughing. He's on film now. He's done it. We've all done it Friday night. Kill the grasshopper and you get them, don't you? And your mandibles. Yeah.
01:53:47
Speaker
spit your enzymes to dissolve them into liquid yeah you dissolve them into liquid yeah and it's that the thing for me is the continual repeating of yeah yeah yeah exactly it's that that kind of hooks you in because he's doing that sort of empty gesture in the observational comedy sometimes comes across as
01:54:09
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you know, the really, really great observational comedians managed sort of not to do this or for the most part managed not to do this. So like, again, I know again, he targets Russell Howard, but I would I would suggest that Russell Howard manages to avoid this for the most part. Yeah. He's quite good at relating to an audience without coming across as like too pandering. I mean, I don't I don't watch much of his TV shows, so I can't speak to that. But certainly when I've seen him live,
01:54:35
Speaker
yeah you know he manages to kind of stay away from that he can he can get you one side without pandering too much you know if anything he was sort of in opposition to the audience quite a lot last time i saw him really yeah it was it was quite good man it was you know listen the guy's been doing it for ages and you can tell that he's skilled you know he's incredibly skilled but again i think the version of Russell Howard that
01:55:00
Speaker
that Stuart Lee takes after in his routines is the kind of, you know, early mock the week 20-something in the news. Well, even before that, like, just like, you know, cheeky, young, chappy in his t-shirt. Which to be fair is like the antithesis of Stuart. Yeah, exactly. So it makes sense that he is a target for him. But I think if you were to look at the Russell Howard of now,
01:55:31
Speaker
He's much more sort of world-weary, if you like. He's still got that positive Russell Howard energy that he's always had. But I went to see him not so long since. And, you know, he's got like, I don't know, there's a kind of, he's always hopeful. Which show was it? I can't remember the name of it, I really can't. It's the one, it's the tour that he's on now. Oh, right. Whatever it is that he's on now. And it is really good. And I'm, you know, not even been facetious when I say that, genuinely, it was really good.
01:55:59
Speaker
he he's still got that like hopeful kind of you know optimistic Russell Howard's aura that he's kind of always had but there is a there is a thing there now that i never noticed before where it's like yeah do you know what sometimes things are shit yeah you know what i mean there's that subtext there now that i didn't... anxiety's done that to him as well yeah because we've all revolved that
01:56:23
Speaker
You know, when you're that sort of relentlessly quite positive person and you're trying to remain that relentlessly positive person, then things happen that are shine. It's going to have an impact. And I did notice that. But, you know, so he's doing that empty thing that the observational comedians do a lot of the time. Who's done this? Yeah. Who's done this? Yeah. And then he gets into that, you know, dissolve it into a liquid. Yeah. So he can feed you grub.
01:56:49
Speaker
Who's got a little grub? Who's got a little grub? I've got a little grub. Honestly, some of the things he says, they're mad. It's hilarious. It's like he can only understand the world from a larval perspective. So good. Which is so brilliant. I genuinely think he's probably just sat down at his computer, written an observation, a shit observational routine. Yeah, yeah. And then rewritten it almost word for word. He's literally probably sat down and done this, rewritten it almost word for word.
01:57:19
Speaker
but with the word insect. What's the insect equivalent of a child? It's a grub, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's just gone absolutely. Do you know what I mean? Cause it's so on point. But it is, it's, yeah. I can see why you think this is like one of your favorite bits. Why you say it's one of your favorite bits. It's just the pace of it and the- How accurate it is. Yeah, the rhythm and everything. It really got me.
01:57:48
Speaker
So he talks about going and doing this insect observational comedy at Pestival, which he describes as a three-day celebration of insects. And then he picks on the word Pestival and says, it's not my joke, it's an entomologist joke, don't judge me. And on the opening night, he found out they were having an insect-themed cabaret to welcome all the entomologists.
01:58:08
Speaker
They booked a saxophonist, David Rothensberg, who obviously, you know, that's where the intro music to this comes from. And they wanted him to come and do sort of half an hour of stand-up about being an insect, whilst dressed as an insect, to the world's 300 leading insect scientists. But, you know, they can't pay him. And she asked him to write a lot of aphid jokes because there's a bunch of aphid experts coming in.
01:58:34
Speaker
and he does this thing where he says, he's doing her voice talking to him and he says, if most of your gags, quips could be about ifs and he always refers to the stuff as like gags and quips, whatever, which I always find quite charming. I imagine that it's based on like a real story. Oh no, 100% is. Of like a corporate gig, maybe not necessarily insects because that's him taking it to the other degree. No, no, no, no, no, it's real.
01:59:02
Speaker
Oh, well, the insects think it's real. Yeah, yeah, 100%. The only bit of it that's not real is he didn't do it in an insect costume. He just did it as himself. But he did mad. He did do 30 minutes of insect themed material to... Yeah, to 300 of the world's leading animal. Yeah, I've got a transcript of it. This bit's real. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's genuine. And this is true.
01:59:32
Speaker
But yeah, so I've got the only bit that's like I said, the only bit that's that's not real is the the insect costume thing. And I think he took that from the bit that Bridget Christie, his former wife, did sort of 10 minutes of material from the perspective of an ant dressed as an ant. Which if you haven't seen the video, please check out it's amazing, genuinely amazing.
01:59:57
Speaker
But yeah, so that's the only bit that's not real. So he says he got this costume created, and then he rang up the producers for the TV series to get them on the hook for filming it. And then about two days later, his manager called up and said the BBC have withdrawn the offer for the whole series out of nowhere. And he said he was disappointed, but he always thought it was too good to be true anyway. You don't get what you always want. It just doesn't happen getting what you want.
02:00:24
Speaker
He says it's like going up to a little child and saying, hello, what's the thing that you would like to have most in the world? What's your favorite thing? A toy red fire engine, is it? Well, I've got one for you there. There it is. You know, that's for you and you can have that and the light flashes and the ladder goes up and it's for you. Take it. And then he sort of switches register and says, Oh dear, it's been smashed.
02:00:47
Speaker
in front of his stupid crying face and then he sort of stops look just stares dead-eyed at the audience and says don't ever dream
02:00:58
Speaker
but you know this is this is that bit that they that the kind of classic bit that they talk about i think this is about 45 minutes into the show as far as i'm aware and this is that classic bit that they talk about in edinburgh hours where you know 45 minutes in it's the always lost point yeah you know that they that they talk about and i think this is sort of here you know because he lays it all out he says there's practical problems with the sudden sudden withdrawal of this work self-employed i haven't earned much money out of jerry springer the opera because it hadn't
02:01:29
Speaker
hadn't set up any other live work because I assumed I was doing this TV series. We had a little baby Jew and the other problem was it meant I was now contractually obliged to go to festival at Barnes Reservoir and do half an hour of stand-up about being an insect whilst dressed in an unjustifiably expensive insect costume to 300 of the world's leading entomologists for no fucking reason at all.
02:01:51
Speaker
So that's him basically saying that's his lowest point in this routine. And he ties it back in beautifully with the next line.
02:02:02
Speaker
All I'm saying Glasgow is does that seem to you like something that should happen to the 41st best standup of all time? Yeah. But that's what I'm saying. It's that thing of this is the kind of hallmark of a good, you know, and it's something I'm trying to keep in mind at the minute right in an hour. And it's something you did brilliantly in yours. And you can kind of tell from watching yours that you've kind of got that theatre background, which I think is what this is and where this comes from, as you always return to what the main theme is. Yeah.
02:02:33
Speaker
you keep reminding the audience keep going back no matter how far the kind of deviations are from it you keep going back and saying don't forget this is the main thrust of the story you know and that's what he's done here is tied it back in
02:02:47
Speaker
you know, and he sort of has a bit of a breakdown at this point. So that shouting 20 years, you know, I shouldn't at this stage in my career, I should not have to go to a reservoir to do half an hour of stand up about if it's for no reason, I should at least be paid for that. You know, and then he Yeah, he does this all the time in in all of his work, he always finds some way
02:03:08
Speaker
to have a roundabout dig at either the city's inn or the venue's inn or something like that. He always finds a way to do that. And he says, the places I perform, the principal purpose should not be the storage of water. It should be theatres or whatever this is. A cesspit with lights. He says, I shouldn't even be in Glasgow at all. I do a month in Edinburgh, you should just travel.
02:03:36
Speaker
Which they obviously are like, ooh. Oh, they fucking hate that. Yeah, but then he makes it worse by saying, it's so near, it's the same city, basically. It went down. They really kind of voiced their displeasure at this point.
02:03:54
Speaker
he says by this point he's in the audience right he's kind of he's done that that trademark stewartly thing of he's got so wound up he's left the stage right he's fucked off he's off he's off the stage the stage is empty and he becomes aggrieved about that he says i can come five feet from the front row and i don't even need to look around to know there's people who can't even be bothered to turn 30 degrees oh well he'll come back probably
02:04:19
Speaker
Genius, but it's also true. Yeah, of course it is. But even like, it is so switched on in terms of what, you know, what the audience are thinking, you know, this is this is purely just because he knows his audience so well. He sort of says, I don't know what this bit is anyway, is it innovation or a mistake?
02:04:40
Speaker
I'll just look at nothing." And then he goes into this bit about, oh, can I have a backdrop? Yeah, what would you like? Can it be of my face? Yeah, we'll just distort it a bit. Because obviously the fucking image on the thing is so distorted, you can't really tell what it is. And he starts unraveling about, I should get respect, especially from children. Seven-year-old kids shouldn't be shouting at me that I'm fat.
02:05:04
Speaker
And this is a brilliant way, then, for him to say- Seven people that's gonna call you fat if anyone's gonna call you fat is seven-year-olds. Yeah, of course it is, 100%. You know, I've got a six-year-old myself, and she tells me at regular intervals how fat I am.
02:05:17
Speaker
He uses this as a brilliant way because he goes through a brilliant way to segue into his next routine because he he goes through he says I am fat but not by the standards of a comedian. Roy Chubby Brown is fat. That's in his name. Fatty Arbuckle. And then he says at large. And the audience fucking lose it. Yeah, which is brilliant. And especially for Stuart Lee as well. Yeah. Anything that's a one word punch.
02:05:46
Speaker
is always going to be a bigger laugh, I think. Yeah, because it's slightly unexpected. Because it's unexpected and it's so and it's quick. Yeah, yeah. Like you don't expect it from him, you expect a long drawn out punch line. So that was why I think that's why it was much
02:06:10
Speaker
because it was... Yeah, yeah. Well, after saying Roy Chubby Brown and Fatty Arbuckle, you're then expecting something of a similar rhythm. Yeah. You know, he says, if you saw me here on this tour for the last show, yes, I put on weights since then, I admit. And coming back here, I thought, I like the stand. It's really nice. I'll try to lose some weight and look nice for them. But, you know, I'm glad I didn't, actually, because there's people going, oh, I won't even look at him. But like I say, he gets back on the stage and he's used that, sort of started now talking about him being fat again.
02:06:39
Speaker
as a way of segwaying into his next routine, which is about Weight Watchers. Yeah. You know, he's been going to Weight Watchers, and it's hard to go to Weight Watchers as a middle-aged man. It's embarrassing. Everyone else there is women, you know, and you feel embarrassed. And he says a great line, which I think is even funnier considering some of the stuff that that's been going on on Yorkshire Comedy Facebook recently, which I won't go into. You have to be brave as a middle-aged man.
02:07:11
Speaker
See, shall we say that similar to the last, is it the last one? The last show that we saw, the last shortly? Yeah, we did 90s Comedian. 90s Comedian. Those on the Yorkshire Comedy Industry Forum, not necessarily all of them, are burdened with the duality of meaning.
02:07:38
Speaker
Yeah, they don't be bothered by it. He's able to be able to say that and we know that that's not really what he thinks. Yeah, of course. But yeah, you have to be brave as a middle-aged man to keep going back to Weight Watchers. Braver in many ways than a fireman or someone fighting in a war. Although I would say it does take bravery to do that.
02:07:58
Speaker
What, go to Weight Watchers? Yeah, yeah. Like, there is some truth in it, but obviously, that's why it's funny, because there is some truth in it. He's taken it to the nth degree. Yeah. Yeah. You know, everyone else says women, and I'm the only person currently failing to lose Weight Watchers as a result of Islam.
02:08:18
Speaker
which he then, you know, obviously acknowledges like the tension in the room. As you mentioned, the word Islam. Yeah. You know, because even I went, Oh, I wonder where he's going with this. I wasn't like tense about it, but I was like, Oh, okay. Carry on. But he used it as a way to have a go at the audience again, as he normally does whenever they kind of. Whenever they pull back.
02:08:49
Speaker
He uses it as a way to have a go, the audience. Some laughs here, mainly in anxiety in the room. And he says, I don't know what you're scared of. Haven't you got a bloke, an airport baggage handler who can pretend to have kicked someone? For anyone who doesn't remember that, there was a guy a while back that stopped, I think he stopped a bombing or a potential bombing at Glasgow Airport.
02:09:12
Speaker
Yeah by like kicking the terrorist or something I don't remember the full story but I know sort of enough about it to understand the joke if that makes sense but yeah so he has a go at that bloke because obviously he's in Glasgow so you know don't worry I'm going to talk about Islam there's people walking out there so I'm afraid Ben Elton says we can't talk about Islam because we'll all be killed
02:09:32
Speaker
He says, I don't care. Don't worry about where this bit's going. If you're nervous, this bit was reviewed in the London Evening Stand as being tediously politically correct. Which, you know, right, here's the thing about Stewart Lee. And he even says this in an episode of Comedy Vehicle, where he gets into more contentious material is,
02:09:54
Speaker
He stops the routine and says to you, the reason it's not offensive for me to say this bit that I'm saying now is because I put some scaffolding in over here to let you know that I'm coming at it from the right place, to let you know that I'm a liberal and I broadly believe that political correctness is a good thing and blah, blah, blah, blah. He says I'm putting all this work in over here so that when I say the contentious bit here,
02:10:21
Speaker
you should feel comfortable by this point. You take it in the way that it's intended. You should feel comfortable by this point that I'm not going to take it to a place that's derogatory or whatever. And he literally spells it out in this episode of Comedy Vehicle, which we will get to at some point. But here, he hasn't so much spelled it out as that's exactly what he's doing. He's been at pains to let you know, don't worry, this will be fine.
02:10:50
Speaker
I mean, in this case, by kind of just saying it. Yeah. But yeah, he says, don't worry about where it's going. In fact, if you were confused so far, you can have boredom to that. You know, where I go to Weight Watchers, I go to Stamford Hill Library, Stoke Newington in North London, where I live. There's only two men in my Weight Watchers group, me and an old Polish man in his late 70s, and everyone else is women. Women of all races, creeds, colours and cultures and shapes and sizes.
02:11:17
Speaker
This joke's brilliant. It's like a United Nations day out to a fun fair hall of mirrors. Yeah, so good. He's such a great description. Such a great way of describing a multicultural group of people that are all also a little bit fat. So he says he was in the queue, went to get weighed. You queue up, you get weighed. And in front of him, there's a young Muslim woman about 25 years old, and she was wearing a hijab.
02:11:44
Speaker
And she asked him, you know, I'm going to get weighed. Would you mind going out in the hallway? Which, you know, he's chosen as the character, he's chosen to misinterpret that. And he said in the footnotes in his book, he said, everything here happens exactly as described, except that I didn't say, no, I'm not going out. I don't know what you're worried about. Love, you're not even that fat to the Muslim woman. He said, I just looked confused.
02:12:08
Speaker
And he said, when I did this routine on Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle for BBC Two, they made me change the location of the Weight Watchers to Finsbury Park to avoid the possibility that I might libel someone. Really? Yes. So, you know, just for a peek behind kind of what goes into this stuff when it goes out on TV, everything goes through lawyers.
02:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, so they're going to pick through this with a fine tooth comb and they're going to be like, ah, is this based on a real person? If it is, can we change some of the details so that, you know. Right, OK. But yeah, so obviously he sort of explains here, he says, in retrospect, it was because she was going to take the head scarf off and, you know, he couldn't see her hair, but he didn't make that connection. He just thought she didn't want to see, you know, didn't want him to see how much weight she put on. You know, and he said, I'm not going out. I don't know what you're worried about. Love, you're not even that fat.
02:12:59
Speaker
And then he realised and started to apologise, but in between, in between me and her, there was a Hasidic Jew, a Hasidic Jewish woman, about 50 years old. And she sort of budged in and she looked at the young Muslim woman and then she looked at me as if to say, first the suicide bombings and now this.
02:13:21
Speaker
But the irony was that the Hasidic Jewish woman, they have a thing where they shave their hair off and the women wear wigs over it. So she's in a wig, the young Muslim woman's wearing a headscarf and me, I'm the atheist, a fat atheist, which we've established. But I didn't see why my attempts to lose weight should be compromised in any way by the hair anxieties of a God I don't necessarily believe exists. It's a great sentence. So he gets himself out of there. I can't stay here to debate this.
02:13:51
Speaker
because if we're ever going to decide how exactly, if at all God wants hair to be concealed, that's not going to happen at Stamford Hill Weight Watchers. It's Stamford Hill Weight Watchers, not Stamford Hill Weight Watchers and religious hair-to-boo discussion circle. Yeah, which again is the long-winded punchline that people expect. Yeah, of course it is, but it's the repetition of the phrase, Stamford Hill Weight Watchers, over and over again. So like, the kind of accepted wisdom would be, only have one mention of that.
02:14:22
Speaker
in the joke and also get to the point as quickly as possible. Which he doesn't do but he caps it off by saying although I would go to that. He takes the opportunity to do a joke at the expense of, this is a bit that
02:14:40
Speaker
frustrates me and I'll explain why in a minute. But he says it's really nice being back in a kind of cosmopolitan city like Glasgow where you can say the phrase Stanford Hill Weight Watchers and religious hair taboo discussion circle and you people realise that it's a joke, there's no such thing. Because what I found is in the north of England in Carlisle or Derby or somewhere when I say Stanford Hill Weight Watchers and religious hair taboo discussion circle there's no laugh and in the north of England people just go well they would have that in that London.
02:15:11
Speaker
Which is great. But I know what you're frustrated by. Do you know what I'm going to get annoyed by? 100%. What is it? Exactly what it is.
02:15:18
Speaker
that Derby isn't in the north. Fucking isn't, no. Look at the Midlands. It aggrieves me. I knew it as soon as, because I thought, I knew it'd annoy you. I noticed it, but it didn't annoy me. But I knew, especially because I know that you get annoyed about silly things. Stuart Lee is a genius.
02:15:41
Speaker
who was also the south so to him Darby is the north yeah but he's not though some people think what is in the north so yeah i once had a guy in london say to me that uh he never travels north of the wattford gap which you know fair enough whatever stay there i don't care um we don't want you here
02:16:04
Speaker
This isn't for you. Don't come back. But what I will say is London, please accept me back. I like coming to your city. Yeah, I'm going in a couple of weeks. Yes. But no, the thing that agrees with me about it is that Stuart Lee himself is from the Midlands. He's not from London. Oh, is he not? No. Well, it's assumed because of his accent.
02:16:25
Speaker
Yeah. Well, so he's done that on purpose. That's an entirely different story. He's intentionally flattened his accent because he said he didn't want to be a regional act, which I get as someone who heavily leans into being a regional act at times. He, yeah, it's a weird one because he's adopted originally born in Shropshire, I think, but then adopted in the Midlands. So like Birmingham.
02:16:53
Speaker
you might have done it just to annoy the northerners then well this is what i was going to say is that stewart lee has unwittingly found the exact specific way to annoy me you know so he makes a joke at the expense of the north of england in inverted commas yeah
02:17:16
Speaker
Which is fine. I quite like jokes at the expense of the North of England, but just get it right where the North is. He says that what I say to people in the North of England is that not every town has to have a cake named after it. Which is so good. All I kept thinking was Pontifract cake. Yeah, that was the first thing. And I was a bit annoyed that it didn't say any in Yorkshire, other than Yorkshire puddings, which aren't cakes.
02:17:46
Speaker
Yeah, and then he's like, oh, Bakewell, Eccles. And then they get confused and they say, you hope should put in his daughter. So he goes out in the corridor, the young Muslim woman has asked the old Polish man to go out in the corridor, and he looked at him and made an angry face. Now, he says a line which I love here.
02:18:03
Speaker
I was worried he was going to say something like fucking Muslims or something. I looked away because I didn't want to have to agree with something racist out of politeness. Which, right, listen. People definitely don't. Excluding any listeners we've got overseas, what you need to realise about British people. Not so much these days. I mean, obviously, things are changing a bit. A lot of people call things out a lot more readily now, quite rightly, in some cases.
02:18:32
Speaker
British people will go along with an awful lot just out of politeness because we don't want to cause a scene. Yeah, exactly. So don't want to cause a scene. Don't want to be brought into something that isn't anything to do with them. Yeah. Also, depending on the person as well, that like from fear of being attacked also. Yeah. And just kind of like, oh, well, yeah, yeah, exactly. Just every everything is about keeping the status quo.
02:19:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, it's the reason that the observation about when you're in a restaurant and the waiter comes over and says, is everything okay? Regardless of how shit your meal is, you'll just be like, yeah, fine, fine. Except my mother-in-law, who does love to... I was going to say, some people, some people revel in it, but they're the outlaws.
02:19:23
Speaker
Well no, not necessarily revel in it as such, what I will caveat... Some of them do. I won't name names but some do. She will quite rightly complain about stuff, whereas I'll just be like, oh fuck, I can't be bothered with it.
02:19:34
Speaker
I have a friend that will not necessarily fabricate things but will be actively looking for a way to complain. They will find that hair. Whereas I'll see it and eat it out of politeness.
02:19:55
Speaker
i'll eat it out of fetish oh jesus sorry guys i just you feel free to edit that out i've been sick in my mouth no that's staying in you can fuck off people need to know what you are Joe so yeah so you know he he basically says that he's not going to end up going back in he's going to lose his nerve he's going to get fatter and fatter
02:20:22
Speaker
But what does it matter? It's 10 or 15 minutes out of my day and I can rejoin the queue. If I was a young Muslim in Britain today, I might feel quite put upon. And maybe these kind of cultural signifiers would take on an extra importance. It doesn't matter.
Political Correctness and Misunderstandings
02:20:35
Speaker
He says, if there was someone behind me in the queue who was blind or on crutches or mentally handicapped or something, I would let them go ahead of me. And then I thought, that's a bit weird.
02:20:43
Speaker
I've just equated having religious belief with being mentally handicapped. He said, which obviously isn't appropriate, even though it is correct. Which is quite funny. And then I got annoyed and I thought, I'm going to go back in, I'm going to tell you, a Muslim, maybe a contributing factor in my ongoing weight gain, driving me out. And if you must wear your hijab to Weight Watchers, then what I suggest you do is take it off at home and weigh it separately.
02:21:08
Speaker
and then deduct its weight from your final total, giving you the correct weight, using maths, which I understand you people claim to have invented. Which is just... unnecessarily harsh, but the whole point is that the way I like this joke is because he's the butt of the joke. Yeah, he is. He's being very reasonable. Yeah, of course he is.
02:21:36
Speaker
i'm just asking him to leave the room for a second but then he caps it off by saying you know but i didn't say that i just went back in and you know i gained some weight yeah knowing full well that it was his fault you know again again he's kind of uh he's made himself the butt of the joke he says now one hesitates in the current climate to make a joke on stage about the muslims not for fear of religious reply reprisal when does that ever hurt anyone
02:22:05
Speaker
Which is hilarious given what 90's comedian is about and the audience picked up on that. But because of a slightly more slippery anxiety, which is when you do stand up in a small room, you know, the subtext is we're all friends and we can make a joke. But you don't really know how a joke's received and it could be that it's laughed at enthusiastically in a way that you don't understand or particularly intended, you know, you don't know who's watching on television. You know, it could be on Paramount, probably someone who's horrible and idiot.
02:22:36
Speaker
You've added all of the subtext and all of the irony and everything and that can just be lost. It's probably far more sensible than anything to an awful thing being said and laughing at it because they agree with it. Well you don't get to decide how a thing is received so like for example, and he makes this joke at the expense of Al Murray,
02:23:00
Speaker
Which I think is great. It's a great joke, but he says in his book, I hope I didn't upset Al Murray personally by saying this, if he was ever made aware of the joke, as his 90s shows as the pub landlord were among the greatest stand up I've ever seen. He says back then, the pub landlord was a bulletproof satire of the soft right. The prominent backstory that informed his prejudice played out to packed fringe festivals, right? Of liberals, you know, liberal. Yeah.
02:23:25
Speaker
You know, I'm sure Al had legitimate artistic worries about the point of preaching to the converted whilst also wondering how to broaden his appeal to achieve the Premier League position he craved. And that's the thing is that, Al Murray, there are two different ways to laugh at Al Murray, right? You look at it how it's intended, which is as a satire.
02:23:49
Speaker
and you intuit the kind of subtext that I'll marry the character is saying these things that I'll marry the person doesn't believe for irony, right? We all know that. But there is a subset of audiences now where they go and, you know, it's that laughing at face value.
02:24:10
Speaker
They're laughing at him saying something racist because they find the racist thing funny. Yeah, exactly. Not laughing at the racist for being racist. Yeah. And I think that's what he's getting at, obviously here. But, you know, so he sort of segues into into saying 84% of the people of the public think that political correctness has gone mad.
02:24:36
Speaker
He says, and I don't think it has, people still get killed for being the wrong colour or wrong sexuality or whatever. And what is political correctness? It's a clumsy negotiation towards a formally inclusive language.
02:24:48
Speaker
Right. You know, it doesn't always get it right. Politically political correctness. I mean, you know, if you were to ask if, if I were to put my opinion forward as a straight white man, because Lord knows we've all got loads of them as straight white men. You know, my opinion is that we may have over corrected a touch. Do you know what I mean? I do. I think we're in an age now where we're very quick to jump on people for things without finding out what they actually mean.
02:25:16
Speaker
And I do feel like we're kind of in a bit of a post irony world now where like 10, 15 years ago it was accepted sometimes that you could ironically take a position that you didn't believe for comic effect. Whereas now, I don't think there's much room for irony now. I think it's taken at face value in a sense that if you say something horrific that you mean it.
02:25:42
Speaker
You know, but that's just, again, it's just one person's opinion. Don't at me. Don't at me. And the, so, you know, he basically says that that's what political correctness is. And I agree with him. And I think political correctness to a degree is a good thing. But we do, you know, we do get to a point sometimes of overcorrecting.
02:26:02
Speaker
He says, it was better than what we had before, but 84% of people think political correctness has gone mad. And you don't want one of those people coming up to you after a gig and going, well done, mate. Well done, actually, for having a go at the fucking Muslims. You know, you can't do anything in this country anymore. It's political correctness gone mad. Do you know, you can't even write racial abuse and excrement on someone's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat.
02:26:27
Speaker
Exactly. And you don't want those people coming up to you after gigs because that's Al Murray, the pub landlord's audience, missing the point and laughing through bird teeth like the dogs that they are. Which is funny for Stuart Lee, the character to say, especially when you realise that Stuart Lee, the person, went to university with Al Murray and has been friends with him for about 40 years. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, they've known each other for a lot. They started out, you know, broadly at the same time, I think. But they've known each other for a long, long time.
02:26:57
Speaker
but yeah so you know he's segwaying now into into his kind of you know political correctness and this is a routine that he's done a bunch of times uh he's done this routine i think he's done it on comedy vehicle but he's also done it in a different slightly different way on snowflake as well right um this particular routine which i don't mind you know some people look at that and they're like oh well you know right new material or whatever but i
02:27:23
Speaker
I do quite like sometimes where they find ways to update old routines for new audiences. Yeah, yeah, because it's still new. It's just a different take on something. Yeah. And also, you know, the world that we live in right now, it's more kind of prescient than ever, really. Yeah. But yeah, so he says, you know, I'm 40, like I said, and I can remember before political correctness, that's why I think it's better.
02:27:49
Speaker
I remember when I was 12, there was one Asian kid in our class and every day when they read the register out for a year, the teacher, instead of using his name, called him the black spot. You know, this was something rife in the sort of seventies. And to be honest, there was elements of that in, you know, when I grew up. Yeah. Yeah. I used, I remember a kid at school. I can't remember, I cannot for life, if I remember his name, cause I was about nine, but the, the PE teacher, I think once called him a little chocolate drop or something.
02:28:20
Speaker
because they were quite popular penny sweets at the time. But that was something that was still happening when I went to school in the 90s. So it's not a new thing by any stretch.
02:28:37
Speaker
you know and he says the street I grew up in just south of Birmingham in 1972 a black family that wanted to move in and all the white families put pressure on the guy to sell the house and he says in eight years previous to that David Cameron never mentions it but the conservative party won a by-election in Birmingham
02:28:54
Speaker
they sent out little kids with leaflets and i'm not going to read this because i don't want to say the word yeah if you want an n word for a neighbor vote liberal or labor now which is mad it's insane when you think about that but the punch line to this joke as horrific as that is
02:29:12
Speaker
The punchline to this joke is incredible, where he says, if political correctness has achieved one thing, it's to make the Conservative Party cloak its inherent racism behind more creative language. Which is true. You know, it's still just as bad as it is now, but it hides it better to a degree. But yeah, so I hate to say this, I think I've said this before, and I think we've had many discussions about this. Using that word, is a bit of a trope of his?
02:29:39
Speaker
Yeah. In the same way that, you know, it's a bit of a trope of Quentin Tarantino to use that word in his script. Yeah. But again, you know, I don't want to get I don't want to go down that rabbit hole again, but I do think and again, you know, caveat that with the fact that we're two white dudes talking about this.
02:29:58
Speaker
I think he comes down on the right side of it because again it's reported speech, it's not used to denigrate, it's not used to, do you know what I mean? But you know he's acknowledged in the past that using that word does create a sort of an anxiety in rooms. So he uses it because he knows it's going to get people's attention, he knows it's going to shock people but he adds validity to his use of it by what he does with it.
02:30:25
Speaker
but I don't really want to say too much more about it because we haven't got time. But yeah, so he sort of says that he thinks it's better. He says, and people think political correctness has gone mad and they don't really know what it means. He says, unless it's his nan, and when his nan says to him, oh, shoot, that political correctness has gone mad. I say, why is that nan? And she goes,
02:30:46
Speaker
I was in the hairdressers and they said to me, would you like a cup of tea, Mrs Harris? And I said, yes, please. And they said, well, you can have one, but you have to drink it in the waiting area because we can't have hot liquids at the workstation. He takes a pause and he says, it's political correctness gone mad, Stu. I believe it would be a real
02:31:06
Speaker
It's 100% a real story. I've heard people talk about the use of seatbelts being political correctness. A work. Yeah, yeah. Seatbelts are work. We can't have tea anymore in case it annoys a Pakistani. Yeah. Which is really funny. Basically, there's a whole generation of people who've confused political correctness with health and safety legislation. Yeah. It's gone mad, they're saying, I can't have an electric fire in the bath anymore, Stu, in case queers see it.
02:31:37
Speaker
One of my favorite things about Bradford is the fact that every year at Christmas, the Christmas lights come up. Yeah. And every year... Someone says they bought Christmas. Someone says that Muslims have said they're not allowed to put Merry Christmas on the Christmas lights. Every year it comes back up. Yeah, every year it comes back up. And there have been multiple, like,
02:32:05
Speaker
videos of people like Vox Pops, interviews in the street of Muslims, anyone from the Islamic faith have basically gone, we don't care. Yeah, we don't care. Why would we be bothered? Yeah, we don't care. And to Jesus as a prophet in our religion.
02:32:26
Speaker
Sorry. Do you know, I find, I find still hilarious and I don't want to say, I don't want to say way too much, but I have to say this, right? Cause I find it really hilarious. Like we as English people, and I use the term we loosely, but as English people, we'll sort of, there's this thing about saying, well, if people come here, they should integrate and all that kind of stuff. But have you ever watched an Englishman try to order a breakfast in Spain?
02:32:53
Speaker
right it's that it's that same thing just learn a couple of like little phrases of spanish yeah no no no they should speak english okay right yeah in spain yeah
02:33:06
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. But when, you know, when, when they come coming over here, when they come over here, we'll take our jobs. But yeah, so, you know, it's one of those things. And again, he's right on the button because he's, you know, he's tapped into something that's, that's right. And funnily enough, he caps that routine off by saying they've banned Christmas. Yeah.
02:33:28
Speaker
Which is funny. But then he gets into my personal favourite routine of this whole thing. And it's something I've tried and tried and tried to kind of assimilate into my own work. I don't want to copy it. But I love the thought of being able to be on stage and not say any words.
02:33:52
Speaker
and do something else that's funny. Do you know what I mean? To hold an audience's attention and it's this thing, you know, where he gets into this routine and he says there's a columnist for the Daily Mail, Richard Little John, and he's got two catchphrases. One is political correctness has gone mad and the other is he couldn't make it up.
02:34:08
Speaker
He says, which is ironic given that the vast proportion of what he writes. And again, he doesn't finish the polish line because the audience know what he's going to say. He says, Richard Littlejohn did a whole page on political correctness about, you know, there was a time where there was a serial murderer killing sex workers.
02:34:26
Speaker
I don't know if you remember this. I remember this happening. I think so. Yeah, like a lorry driver or something. And he was like, he was killing sex workers in like Norwich or somewhere. And the police and the broadsheets at the time routinely referred to them as women that worked as prostitutes. And Richard Littlejohn took issue with this did a column on it about its political correctness gone mad and you should call them prostitutes and not women that work as prostitutes. Yeah. And he said something about it was, you know, none of them were ever going to find a cure for cancer.
02:34:56
Speaker
he says it wasn't political correctness gone mad it was the papers and the police thinking some of these people are really young they've got family and friends what can we do to cushion this ugly word prostitute a nice thing to do but for little john it wasn't that it was political correctness gone mad and they were prostitutes and should be called prostitutes and again this is that thing of him going down the what if he says and one wonders how far richard little john would go in his quest for the accurate naming of dead women
02:35:24
Speaker
would he go perhaps to a cemetery under the cover of night armed with a little chisel and a torch and he's there at the grave here lies Elaine Thompson age 19 and he's there amending it and then he starts tapping on the microphone stand with the microphone and he's making all these little noises he's finding all the little nuts and bolts and making these scraping noises and he goes through the thing he does the tapping here lies Elaine Thompson age 19 tap tap tap tap
02:35:55
Speaker
Prostitute. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Not a woman who works as a prostitute. Tap, tap, tap, tap. A prostitute, right? And the best thing about this routine is that the amount of chiseling that he does in nowhere matches the words that he then says. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So great. So he's chiseling away for minutes and minutes at a time and then just goes, PS. Yes. So good. I hate women, obviously, and I'm glad when they die,
02:36:26
Speaker
yours, Richard Little John, cun. And then choosing not someone who works as a cun. It's so good. It's so good. And then he rounds it off. So the last time I was at home, my mum said to me, why can't you work the cruises like Tom O'Connell? Brings it back.
02:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, which brings it back again, back to the main thing. And he's back in the story, the phone rang, it was Bridget Nichols from Festival and she said to me, I hope you don't mind me ringing up, I'm just checking, you know, that you're okay. And he says, look, I'm not coming to your stupid fucking festival or whatever it was that he said.
Cultural Festivals and Personal Stories
02:37:02
Speaker
I've no intention whatsoever of coming. And he ends the routine by asking a woman in the audience to cry into the microphone.
02:37:12
Speaker
to mimic Bridget Nichols from Festival crying on the phone. And the woman sort of giggles a bit and he just says, oh dear, I said, could you cry into here? And I've done 70 other dates of this tour where a person knows the difference between giggling and crying. And this is the one that's been filmed here in Glasgow, the city where all emotions are considered to be the same.
02:37:38
Speaker
Yeah, where he's clearly annoyed that that's happened. Yeah, but he's also ecstatic as well because it's brilliant. And probably because the cameras are there as well, the nervousness and...
02:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, maybe I just I do genuinely think that he revels in it when it goes wrong. You know what I mean? I think that that's definitely happened before. Yeah, probably. But he can't have gone through so many dates and no one been giggling through the microphone. But this is what I'm saying. He kind of gets into the thing of it being like, right, well, it's it's not improvisation anymore. It's like these decision tree things. Nothing, you know, everything that's happened has already happened. So he knows exactly what to do.
02:38:19
Speaker
He says so anyway so it was that three days later I found myself on stage at Pestival dressed as an insect in a now financially unjustifiably expensive insect costume trying to think of something funny about aphids and I realised I'd missed the point. Pestival was really good and I should have just done it with good grace it was too late and I was out there and I was looking at these entomologists and I had nothing to say minutes passed dry throat nothing to say and then I thought to myself what would Tom O'Connor do?
02:38:48
Speaker
So I said to a bloke in the front row, what do you do for a living? He said, I'm an entomologist. I said, are you a sardine? No, I'm an entomologist. He said, no, woman next to him, what do you do for a living? I'm an entomologist. I said, are you a sardine? And he said, I said to a bloke in the middle, what do you do for a living? He said, I'm an entomologist. We're all entomologists. This is a conference of entomologists. And I realized that Tom O'Connor had made it look easy.
02:39:13
Speaker
Right, so he's gone all the way through disparaging Tom O'Connor and he's pulled it back at the end, right? And made himself look stupid because he thinks that the genius is asking are you an insect, not.
02:39:29
Speaker
Are you an insect? He was sardine. And he says that he asked around other comics and Johnny Vegas said he'd seen him at a men's, a new working men's club in Liverpool. And he was brilliant. And he should have been the new Billy Connolly. And he had all these fantastic routines. He says, but remember Glasgow, this was in Liverpool where cloying, more kish nostalgia is regarded as the highest form of entertainment. And then he has a dig at Glasgow again by saying rather than fighting.
02:40:00
Speaker
Which is brilliant. You know, and he says he thought about his mum. And this is where he caps it off again. He's reiterating everything that the show's been about. I had nothing to show for my career, but Tom O'Connor knows that when he dies, somewhere in a lock-up garage in Liverpool, there's literally hundreds of golf umbrellas. With a picture of his face on them. And when the world finally floods.
02:40:20
Speaker
An alien race is gonna come down and think that Tom O'Connor was some kind of god. Possibly responsible for rainfall. Who we'd failed to appease.
02:40:32
Speaker
But, you know, rather than just a man who spent his twilight years traveling the high seeds endlessly repeating the phrase, are you a sardine in the hope it might be appropriate? And he says, I realize that underestimated my mother. And whenever she goes on at me about Tom O'Connor, she's not trying to wind me up. She's just trying to find some common ground.
02:40:52
Speaker
He said, I was in a WH Smith about a year ago. I looked up and I saw a magazine I'd never seen before called British Quilt Making Monthly, which I've tried to find. I don't know whether it's actually a real thing. Probably not. I'd love it if it was. And there was a photograph of one of my mum's quilts on the front and it turned out she's the 41st best quilt maker in Worcester.
02:41:11
Speaker
He says in his book, I didn't see this magazine in Smith's, I saw it at my mum's house. She wasn't voted 41st best quilt maker ever. It was just an exaggeration for, you know, for a callback. But her quilt was on the cover. And he says I hadn't taken into account what a significant quilter she was.
02:41:28
Speaker
Whether or not the magazine was actually called that, I'm not sure. Or whether it was like a, you know, a, I don't know. Good housekeeping or something. Yeah, a quilting club type thing. I don't know. You know, so he rang his mum up and he said, look, I've written this show about, about, you know, the main through line of this show is how you always go on at me about Tom O'Connor. Is that okay?
02:41:47
Speaker
And she says, that's fine, Stu. But he was hilarious now, Stu. Gets back into it again. He'd come out, Stu, you know, and he's back in that thing. But then she says, oh, hang on a minute, Stu, come to think of it. I don't think it was Tom O'Connor that said that. Which in the footnotes of his book, he says hilariously, this is entirely true.
02:42:10
Speaker
brilliant he says after years of telling me about Tom O'Connor and the sardine joke it was only when I rang her having largely completed the show to check that she didn't mind being mentioned that she'd remembered it wasn't Tom O'Connor but another brilliant apparently called John Smith
02:42:27
Speaker
who is impossible to trace due to his un-Google-able name. Brilliant. You know, he says basically, Tom O'Connor was off the hook and I was over the moon. Conceptually, my mother's failure of memory had given me the show's perfect end. Which is brilliant, you know. And this is it. And that's, I suppose, the thing that I'll say about this just in closing for this bit is that that's exactly how it happens sometimes. We don't know what we're going to do.
02:42:56
Speaker
I'm writing a show at the minute and I'm kind of hoping that at least for certain bits of it, something's going to drop into my lap or fall out of the sky because that is kind of how it happens sometimes. You just don't necessarily know where it's going to come from.
02:43:09
Speaker
absolutely but yeah so then he caps it off by for me quite uncharacteristically and you can tell that he's just obviously just had a baby or whatever because he ends it on a really sweet hopeful note which i have to be honest with you like having since had kids myself when i see it occasionally
02:43:34
Speaker
I get a little lump in my throat, as opposed to, you know, the customary lump in my trousers, that I often get when... Watching, surely.
02:43:47
Speaker
I was hoping not to finish the punchline. You've acted as my audience, Joe, and you've filled in the blanks for me, thank you. Some might say I'm slightly obsessed with Stuart Lee, but this particular ending to this show, like I said, really did kind of touch me in a different way.
02:44:09
Speaker
fuck you know we've been at this too long Joe you know title of e sex tape but there was one laugh I got about 11 months ago that did seem to count for something and it was when our little boy was about a month old which you know like I said
02:44:29
Speaker
One of the reasons I really identify with this at the moment is we've got a baby and she's just over a month old. So watching this recently for this episode has hit me in a different way. When a little boy was about a month old and I actually made him laugh for the first time. And the way that I did was I put this orange woolen giraffe on my head like that.
02:44:48
Speaker
and he puts this giraffe on his head and he says, yeah, it's good, isn't it? It's kind of the direction I'm going in. It's not controversial, it just is what it is. And that's the way you make a one month old child laugh, by putting an orange woolen giraffe on your head, and you put it on your head and then you stand still, silent, expressionless for as long as possible, as if doing this with the most normal thing in the world. And he just puts it on his head.
02:45:12
Speaker
and stands there and stares at the audience waiting for the music. And the thing about this, like I say, other than the really kind of, like I say, it's quite a poignant, sweet image and thing that he's talking about. Uncharacteristic, I would say, for Stuart Lee, but in a really good way. One of my favorite things about this bit is that throughout the whole bit where he stood there in silence, there's one dude laughing his head off. Brilliant. Just one guy just going,
02:45:40
Speaker
just occasionally and you hear this guy and i get the impression that he's doing it out of nervousness i don't think he's actually finding it funny i think he just wants to fill the silence yeah no that makes sense then the music you know comes up and it's a really sort of sweet tune
02:45:59
Speaker
his eyes and then he wanders off. He waves with the giraffe and he wanders off. And he said in the book, the text faded up a snatch of the soundtrack from Hal Hartley's Simple Men and faded down the lights. And when I and the giraffe bowed and waved to the crowd and closed the whole thing on a heart-stopping hanging cadence that usually brought gasps of admiration for its theatrical audacity and even the occasional stifled sob,
02:46:24
Speaker
he says apart from Darby where the guy forgot everything I'd asked him to do and just left me standing there brightly lit for ages he must have like a pang of anxiety when he gets all the way to the end and like the way to really tie all that up is to have that music start up and he stood there for ages thinking how long are they going to let this go I know how they feel yeah because that happened to you didn't it yeah shit I'd forgotten about that
02:46:54
Speaker
Oh, that
Comedy Vehicle Series and Upcoming Events
02:46:55
Speaker
was so funny. So yeah, so that's the show, right? Final thoughts, 41st best, Joe? Yeah, I think it's my favourite so far. I'm excited to get into Comedy Vehicle because I've seen...
02:47:10
Speaker
um season three but i've not seen any before that well what i will say to you is before we get to that uh the earlier comedy vehicle is something that perfected itself as it went along right i would say the earlier seasons are less my favorite than the later seasons the later seasons three and four he really got it right uh one and two he was experimenting with the farm he was trying to find stuff there's good stuff in there don't get me wrong there's really good stuff in there because it's stupidly um but
02:47:41
Speaker
All I would just to set expectations based compared to the comedy vehicle that you've seen already. Yeah. It's just so it's not that, you know, it's slightly different. So we will get into that at some point. Thanks as always, Joe. And thanks for obviously putting up with us having to do this a number of times due to technical issues. We'll try and we'll try and make this easier. I can't wait to edit this monster together.
02:48:09
Speaker
try and figure out how to pick through the bones of this. To everyone else, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it a lot. Please do go to comedyfestival.co.uk to find tickets for our live Across the Student Universe podcast at the Leicester Comedy Festival with special guest Michael Legg of the Alternative Comedy Experience, which I've now remembered the name for.
02:48:33
Speaker
Yeah. Also for your show. Yes, I'm doing my show Breathless. That's also on there. It's on the same day. Yeah, it is on the same day. It's immediately after we do the podcast. So you could follow us down there. Yeah. If you wanted to come to both. What date's yours Joe? The 16th. So mine's the 16th at E Street Lanes. Can we also announce the cool thing as well?
02:48:58
Speaker
yeah so at six o'clock is my show and then uh at 7 30 next door at the Y theater i am opening the gay comedy night at the Y theater which is being uh hosted by sean davies um and features myself uh dan tayden sakisa and olga coch
02:49:28
Speaker
I've got to be honest, right? I just have to say to the listener, Joe's Cheshire Cat grin as he sort of made his way through that little piece of promotion was just beautiful. It just looks like, like, I'll be honest, because I haven't had professional photo shots yet.
02:49:45
Speaker
It does look like I've just photoshopped my own head onto that. No, they've made that professionally, haven't they? They've done that. Yeah, but if you look at mine... Yeah, I know what you're saying. That's what I mean. It just looks like they've made the part and I've just added myself on at the top. But no, I'm obviously going to get a green room selfie.
02:50:10
Speaker
because legally I have to I think. But yeah, it takes a lot for me to be speechless. So yeah, like I say comedy-festival.co.uk. If you are going to the less comedy festival at all, or if you're not planning to, please do come and see all those things.
02:50:36
Speaker
Can't really, can't really say any more than that. So yeah, let's, let's leave Joe, cause I'm aware you've got to be places and I should really go and see my children. Thank you everyone for listening.