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Episode 5: Comedy Vehicle #1.2 - Television (2009)
447 Plays6 months ago
Dan and Joe look at the second episode from Comedy Vehicle Series 1, Television.
This episode features arguably some of the weakest stand-up of the series (Stew's words) but some of the strongest sketches (our words), with the classic Del Boy/Wicker Man nightmare crossover that you never asked for.
Recording of this episode was a tricky proposition due to time constraints, so was recorded in two sittings, clearly separated by a little piece of music. Marvel at how we seamlessly pick up from where we left off!
If you're in the area in May, do come and see us at the Brighton Fringe festival, where both Dan and Joe have work in progress shows and we're recording a couple of live pods!
details HERE
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Across the Stewniverse podcast, the world's only podcast about the comedian Stuart Lee. Today we're going to be looking at comedy vehicle episode two television. Now, Joe and I had a little bit of a debate about this one in episode one.
00:00:53
Speaker
kind of for context we watched both of them together because we'd intended to record the episodes back to back but I didn't end up doing that because the first one rang long. Shocker.
00:01:06
Speaker
But we had a little bit of a disagreement over which one was the better of the two. So we get into that a little bit this time. But for my part, I kind of preferred elements of both. But overall, I preferred episode one, which was obviously toilet books.
Live Events and Fringe Festival Details
00:01:26
Speaker
Now I'm not going to spend too long on a preamble with this one because I'm currently in the middle of editing episode 3, political correctness. So that episode should be along fairly shortly.
00:01:41
Speaker
For those of you in the Brighton area of the UK, we, well I say we, just me, plus special guests are coming to the Brighton Fringe Festival for a live episode of Across This Universe. On the bank holiday weekend, the late May bank holiday weekend, Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th of May at 9.15pm in Barre Broadway in Brighton. So the first one in Leicester was a lot of fun for those of you who've listened to it.
00:02:10
Speaker
the episode that we put out for it thank you and also thanks to our guest Michael Legg for basically carrying the entire episode while we figured out how to do one. But in terms of the Brighton one we've got Leeds emo comedy double act no money in the bank booked for either the Saturday or the Sunday I can't remember which off the top of my head and a special guest to be confirmed for the other one so do look out for that.
Stand-Up Comedy and Personal Experiences
00:02:38
Speaker
and tickets are available at www.brightonfringe.org for that one, the Brighton Fringe Festival website. You'll also find tickets on there for my solo work in progress and my new show.
00:02:56
Speaker
breathless which i performed a couple of times now still you know as it's a work in progress trying to figure out kind of what it's what it's all about and putting the show together but did a work in progress in Leeds went okay did a work in progress in Leicester went less okay but either way working progresses are always fun to watch because you're either going to see
00:03:16
Speaker
the birth of something genius or a car crash. There are no in-betweens. It's black and white. There are no areas, no shades of grey with work in progress. So yeah, do come along to that. That's by Broadway as well at eight o'clock. So those two nights immediately before the live podcast records. So yeah, do come along to those.
00:03:39
Speaker
Joe's got a Brighton Festival show as well but off the top of my head I can't remember the date so if you're on the Brighton Fringe Festival website please do type in Joe Berkwood and figure out
00:03:54
Speaker
when Jo's shows are as well. I think the 12th of May, but I can't remember. He's doing a work in progress as well. Anyway, yeah, I rambled on for far longer than I said I was going to do, so let's crack on with it, shall we?
Comedy Vehicle Series Analysis
00:04:05
Speaker
Comedy vehicle episode two, television.
00:04:11
Speaker
You've remembered why you prefer this one. Yeah. Okay. So just a little bit later, but I have remembered. Yeah. I mean, just for context, obviously we've done that thing where we were kind of thoroughly unprepared and we've started recording in the half in the middle of a conversation, but one that we hadn't really got going yet. So that's why this is all just a little bit shoddy starting up. But yeah, so we're going to dive straight into this because obviously both of us are on the clock time wise.
00:04:38
Speaker
normally we do a little bit of chit chat but we're not going to bother doing that so what we're looking at this time what we're looking at today is comedy vehicle series one episode two which is called television
00:04:50
Speaker
Yes. Now, a bit of kind of background on this one, which I got, by the way, from listening to the commentary track on the DVD. Because you're an absolute nerd. Because I'm a bit of a, yeah, dork. Have I listened to the commentary on anything I've ever watched?
00:05:10
Speaker
Oh, I do it if there's like, you know, if there's some value to it. Like, if I feel like I'm going to learn something, if it's just like, I don't tend to do it with movies because it's just actors saying how great it was to work with each other. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not interested. I don't really give a shit. Yeah, I'm not interested in listening to actors lie to each other about how much they like each other. We're honest about it.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's it. I think, in fact, funnily enough, it came up in the commentary track. So again, it was Stuart Lee, Kevin Elden and Paul Putner. And one of the things that they said is they talked about how disingenuous commentary tracks are generally.
00:05:53
Speaker
And they sort of, you know, they were going through the sketches and stuff as they came up and they were like, oh yeah, so and so she was really great to work with. But we would say that, of course. You know, as all these commentary tracks go, you're not just going to say if someone was a dick or if you didn't like them. So you'll pick up on the ones that we didn't get on with because we just won't talk about them.
00:06:14
Speaker
Um, which is uh, which is quite funny, but but yeah, so Interestingly enough in the commentary track what they said was that this episode was originally meant to be uh episode one Or at least the kind of the team and the you know bbc and these people they all wanted it to be episode one. Um Because they felt the sketches in this one was stronger
00:06:38
Speaker
Which I agree with. Which is, yeah. I agree the sketches in this one were better than the sketches in the first episode. But they said, or at least sort of Stu's thing was he felt the stand up in this episode was weaker. Right. And the reason he said that is because he can tell, because it's the episode that they filmed first, he said he can see himself being scared.
00:07:06
Speaker
and being self-conscious about it. Yeah, he said he can see something. He knew it in the moment. I mean, you know, they did try to kind of pick at that. I think Paul Putner, or one of them anyway, it's either Paul or Kevin, who basically said to him, you know, when you're on stage, can you step out of that and does it or does it overwhelm you and stuff? And he sort of talks about like gripping the microphone really tightly. So like there's elements of when you watch it, you can see him really going for it with the grip on the microphone.
00:07:36
Speaker
because it's sort of like he can't slip at that point so it's it's like being on a roller coaster that sort of white knuckle yeah like holding up their life because he can't stop it he's also he's completely aware of like so he his rationale behind it was he basically said that when it's just a gig who gives a shit if you fuck it up
00:08:01
Speaker
like it because it doesn't matter it says at the end of the day if it's a gig especially if it's your own gig yeah all right people have paid to see it but whatever they get that evening that's what they paid for yeah he said whereas with something like this you're talking about a whole team of people whose life you're fucking up by like not doing this properly yeah like you're making it harder for a massive like you'll know obviously with your theater background right
00:08:26
Speaker
oh yeah the difference between staging a theatre production and just going and doing some you know doing a stand-up hour yeah there's much less pressure yeah because you know the only person yeah the only person it's on in a stand-up show is you which is a double-edged sword that you've got that sort of boat like
00:08:51
Speaker
that feeling is both sides at the same time. What, like the pressure's a good thing? Yeah, because the pressure is in the sense of, yes, you're not relying on other people, you don't have like all these other kind of people that can, like I struggle doing theatre at times. Yeah. Mainly because I don't like to share
00:09:21
Speaker
And I end up doing, so like my first proper theatre production, the main criticism that I had for it, not from me, but from other people, was it was good. If you'd have let other people help you, it would have been great. And I have that thing, but also, in some ways it's helpful because
00:09:50
Speaker
you're not letting people down if you fuck up. But the pressure is also more because it is all on you.
Stuart Lee's Stand-Up Philosophy
00:10:01
Speaker
So it's sort of both sides at the same time.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But, you know, Stuart Lee quite famously, it doesn't sort of do or tries not to do collaborative projects in that sense, certainly not anymore, because he likes the control of stand up and like, you know, it being just why I do stand up, I think. Yeah, exactly. Because I'm completely the opposite. Like I don't I enjoy doing stand up at times. I have a love-hate relationship with him. I enjoy doing it at times. I enjoy long form. I don't enjoy short form.
00:10:35
Speaker
What, like, you don't enjoy shorts? I don't enjoy five minutes. I don't know, there's an interesting challenge in that though, trying to get a really good five minutes. To be fair, maybe five, I've got better up since Frog. Yeah. Because I've had to kind of hone it to be able to do that properly. Yeah. But it's the in-between bit that I'm struggling with at the minute. What, the 10s, the 15s, the 20s? The 10s, the 15s, the 20s. Yeah. Where I don't have long enough to
00:11:06
Speaker
to do a full story. Yeah. And it's picking and choosing which bits. And I'm sort of in a bit of a weird place in terms of material where most of my material is too old. Yeah. And I haven't written new stuff yet. I've got to be honest, probably the best five minutes you've got is guinea pig Jesus. Like, as in the last... Well, that depends on the room.
00:11:34
Speaker
if I tried to do guinea pig jesus at the frog yeah but that's not good yeah but that's exactly and that's the same for everyone at the frog though but what you've what you've kind of shown me through us throwing roast jokes back and forward at each other is that you can write really good short jokes and that's your frog stuff that's what you want is
00:11:55
Speaker
you know like how i always complain to you that my stuff all right there's this theme to it at times and all that kind of stuff and i've tried to coalesce it into a theme but essentially what mine is is short jokes that connect to each other yeah
00:12:11
Speaker
like rather than me telling a story I'll tell one short joke about having asthma and then I'll tell another short joke that follows on from that but it's not necessarily a story it's just you know similar to kind of like what Frankie Boyle might do yeah not on that level obviously but you know similar stuff anyway we're getting bogged down in this right we always do this um
00:12:33
Speaker
right so it's almost like we're friends and we're like talking to each other now it is almost like we have common common interests and enjoy each other's company um how dare we but yeah so anyway so bringing that to stew the funny the funny thing about this is he also said that um the suit that he wears he had to have made specially because he needed a suit that hid specifically how fat he was getting oh really and you know like anytime we wear he bought his
00:13:02
Speaker
He did actually mention, he said that he had it made for him by the man, and bear in mind this was 2007, 8, 9. He said he had it made for him by the man that makes clothes for Katie Price.
00:13:19
Speaker
Which is quite funny. What do you think? Considering the first episode was toilet books, and I'm sure she's written a few of them in her time. But anyway. With kisses or drawn kisses. Yeah, exactly.
00:13:38
Speaker
So he, you know, he's doing the usual kind of shiny floor set up thing. Welcome to Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle, etc, etc. And he sets the whole thing up by essentially saying we're living in the last days of Western civilization from a cultural, artistic and intellectual point of view. And I first noticed this 18 months ago when I went into a branch of your sushi.
00:14:02
Speaker
and they had a dish named after the Joy Division song Love Will Tear Us Apart, which
00:14:11
Speaker
You know, obviously, I'd love to know whether or not that was true. He doesn't go into whether or not that was true, but that whole little bit. I can imagine that. Yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. That little bit coupled with the, you know, the Love Will Tear Us Apart, Your Sushi sketch, which, by the way, Love Will Tear Us Apart is one of the greatest songs ever written. By one of the greatest bands. Yeah, absolutely. But
00:14:38
Speaker
he's done this on a number of occasions where he kind of the character of Stuart Lee is taking aim at people who sell out and do adverts and all that kind of stuff whereas the man himself now these days has kind of softened his stance a little bit and he understands you know he's kind of come around I've never seen him do something himself no he wouldn't do it but he doesn't have to and this is I would love it if the if the car phone warehouse
00:15:09
Speaker
And he did. And it was just him going, the car phone warehouse. Oh yeah, pretty much. I think he should do that. But he, you know, he's been known to say in an interview certainly recently that he understands comedians having to do these things now. Because otherwise you can't make any money.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, he said in, you know, in the arts now, he said he's in a position where he kind of got in at the tail end of when things started to go bad, you know, and he was already kind of famous by the time it went wrong.
Television Critique and Satirical Commentary
00:15:43
Speaker
So he already had a base to build from. Yeah. And, you know, he's in a position now where he's quite a comfortable, you know, he's in quite a comfortable position. You know, he's not he's certainly not a millionaire and he's not, or at least, you know, I don't think he is. And he's not. Well,
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, he's well off, but what I'm saying is he's not Russell Howard. No. Do you know what I mean? Well, yeah. He's not Russell Howard. He's not Michael Blackett. Let's see what his net worth is. Yeah, but that's never true, is it, on the internet? Yeah, I know. But I'd just like to... Well, I'll let you look that up anyway, but the joke that comes off the back of this is...
00:16:26
Speaker
essentially where it's not even really a joke where he sort of says does Ian Curtis's wife look at the tiny parcel of rice and fish going round and round on a fish juice smeared conveyor belt and think that's what he would have wanted. You know it's not really a joke is it but it's a joke in as far as stewardly the character does jokes and you know obviously the sketch is kind of fun but I think it's quite throwaway really it's you know it's good.
00:16:55
Speaker
which then leads into talking about television you know as they collapse a civilization he talks about television and then he does on the bounce three my granddad used to say jokes which obviously are a bit of a theme of comedy vehicle as a whole there's that that quite famous one that he does where he says you know my granddad always used to say don't judge a book by its cover um
00:17:19
Speaker
And that's how he lost his job as the head judge of the book cover awards panel or whatever the joke was. You know what I mean? Which is an old Harry Hill joke actually. Yeah, I mean you're saying that. Yeah, my... I can't remember what it was but it's something about being a...
00:17:39
Speaker
you know, my grandfather always used to like fires and that's how he lost his job as a fire marshal or something. It was something to do with firemen. But anyways, that style of joke. But he does three of them here where he sort of says, my granddad used to call the television the idiot slant and as a result of that, he lost his job as head of ITV.
00:18:03
Speaker
My granddad used to call the television The Idiot's Lantern, and it was a result of that, that he was given the job as the head of ITV.
00:18:14
Speaker
Approximately ยฃ3.8 million, by the way. Yeah, I mean, how far you can believe that? I don't know. That probably just means you've got a house in London. It's how Networx works, isn't it? That's not unlikely enough. Yeah, he's got a house in London. But anyway, I would imagine speculating on one's net worth is kind of gauche. I wouldn't want to do that.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really want to do that. Gosh paint. What? Isn't that just a type of paint? Gosh. No, it's, you know, it's another word for some reason. Oh, no, it's on cougar. It's fucking never, never mind. It was made me stupid. That was gouache. You can tell it's late at night. You can tell it's been a long day. I'm not an art teacher, right? No.
00:19:11
Speaker
Absolutely. But yeah, so anyway, right. So he's talking about television. He's kind of setting up the key theme for the episode television. Right. And he says that as a child, his mum said he learned to speak from watching children's television. Apparently there was a woman on Play School dressed as a kind of commedia dell'arte. And she said, I'm a Piero.
00:19:36
Speaker
Can you say Piero and he said that as a child he said Piero and his first word was Piero Which makes massive sense for Stewart Lee the character, right? Of course something as pretentious as as that Which again, I think it even on Stewart Lee the character. I don't think is true. No, it is true is that yeah, so it's true for Stewart Lee the person and
00:20:04
Speaker
But I think it's funnier if Stuart Lee the character didn't. But that's the kind of word that he wanted to have been in his first words. Yeah, maybe. But in terms of the real human being... Yeah, but in terms of the real human being, it's true. What was your first word?
00:20:31
Speaker
Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told? Who wasn't told
00:21:00
Speaker
It's nice to see you've come on since then. Barely. Now I've faced the TV. It's nice to see you've made improvements since then. But yeah, so, you know, my first word was Piero. I was 28 years old. Yeah, it's that classic thing of it's still funny. Yeah, of course. Even when you know it's going to happen.
00:21:26
Speaker
you know and then he says obviously and this this is something that that kind of plays into my generation um or our generation should I say you may you may have been a fan of this but um my own son's actually learned to speak from watching BBC children's television but he learned to speak from watching dick and dom in the bungalow
00:21:46
Speaker
Which, right, when I say of my generation, what I mean is I used to go out on a night out, get leathered, and that was my hangover television. And then you'd just shout bogeys. Yes.
Comedic Influences and Collaborations
00:21:58
Speaker
And again, he's saying, you know, learn to speak. I was talking about this at school the other day. Why can't kids just do that?
00:22:05
Speaker
Learn to speak by just shouting bogeys over and over again. Again, he's 28 years old. Have you seen the most recent thing that seems to be going around in it? I don't remember watching it at the time. On the Dicandom and the bungalow. No. Where it's like a weird dog that has cross eyes that's like a puppet dog.
00:22:28
Speaker
And he comes through the dog flap and it's, I can never remember which is which. He's like, where have you been up to this week? And I've realized that he sounds like Frankie Monroe.
00:22:40
Speaker
not hacker no not hacker that's something different okay fine but there is a dog and he's like well this week i've been to stalk on drent stalk on drent and he does like this stuff that sounds funny yeah there's a weird kind of song about that and it just sounds like frankey and then it's so funny
00:23:04
Speaker
i mean to be honest it sounds like hacker as well anyway to be fair it's definitely not hacker no i know it's not because i know um but yeah so again just sort of like you know looking at this all look at what we're just normal men just innocent men innocent man
00:23:29
Speaker
But yeah, so like these punchlines, these he was 28 years old punchlines. So again, this is harking back to, you know, it's a classic thing, it's been done before, but it's harking back to what you used to do with Richard Herring in the, you know, Fist of Fun and this morning with Richard. I need to watch Fist of Fun. You've not seen it?
00:23:50
Speaker
I've not seen anything with either of them in. Oh man. No, you need to get on that. Especially in Rod Hall stuff. It's really funny. Kevin Elden playing Rod Hall or a man who thinks he's Rod Hall. I also googled Kevin Elden earlier because I realised that for ages, every time I'd seen the sketches, I was like, I recognise him from somewhere and I can't remember where.
00:24:18
Speaker
And then thankfully I googled it and it showed me. He's in Hot Fuzz? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He's one of the place officers in the thing and he does such a good West contraction. Yeah, he's the one with the thing over his nose, any of the nasal strip thing over his nose. Oh yeah. Did you ever watch Black Books? Not enough to know.
00:24:48
Speaker
All right, OK, so he did a guest. A little bit. Yeah, he did a guest character in that. He was like a cleaner that came in to clean the bookshop and he was just walking around just like dirty. It's so funny. But yeah, honestly, if you were to go back over all of the things you've loved from the like 90s and the 2000s and the 2010s, you'll probably be in
00:25:13
Speaker
90% of them. But yeah, anyway, so this stuff about the 28 years old sort of punch lines, obviously it's a common trope of Stu's, but like he said in this case that he was using them because again, because he wasn't as confident with this particular show, like he couldn't get it to work the way he wanted it to. And he struggled to sort of figure out how to start the show. So he leaned heavily on a lot of stuff like this. Yeah.
00:25:43
Speaker
Obviously, what he's trying to do as the character, or at least what I think he's trying to do, is point out the kind of the artifice of everything that's on television whilst himself being on television. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, to sort of do that, he was leaning on a bunch of jokes that he'd kind of done before.
00:26:05
Speaker
which you know it comes to embrace as a bit of a trope anyway in later seasons but for this one it you know I think he was just a bit self-conscious based on what he kind of said in the commentary but obviously he
00:26:25
Speaker
he did what he did. And he used a phrase that comes up again in, if you prefer, a milder comedian when he's talking about the Top Gear presenters. But in this case, he says, my main problem with television is I can't work out which of the main channels to hate the most. Right? Now,
00:26:45
Speaker
He says that exact same phrase about the presenters of Top Gear and if you prefer a milder comedian. My main problem with Top Gear is I can't work out which one of the presenters to hate the most. But, you know, obviously in this case, talking about television channels, BBC One, watching the one show with Adrian Childs is like being trapped in the buffet car of a slow moving express train with a Toby Jug that somehow learn to speak.
00:27:12
Speaker
speaking Toby Jug filled to the brim with hot piss. The best thing about that is the first thing I thought was I didn't know if the one show was going back then. Oh god it's been good for years. Yeah it's been going for years man but um he's actually you know he's taken a lot of flack for having a go at Adrian Charles in this episode.
00:27:35
Speaker
Really? Yeah, I think Adrian Charles was really mad about it. I'm sure he wrote an article about it back in the day.
00:27:44
Speaker
Guardian or something like that. He probably did. I'm sure he did. Unless I'm misremembering that, but I know for definite because they said as much in the commentary that Armando Iannucci, who was a genius, but he was also heavily involved in Comedy Vehicle. What was it? Yeah, so I think he was a script editor or
00:28:07
Speaker
something in the scripting department, script supervisor or something. And also, you know, he plays the part of the, you know, the interrogator. Yeah. In the in-betweeny bits, he plays that part in in series two. But he apparently went on the one show and Adrian Charles just wanted to talk to him about how Stuart Lee had ripped him apart in this this routine. And he wasn't happy about it. That's when you know your ego is too much.
00:28:38
Speaker
yeah oh yeah when you can't take the fact that a comedian has made a joke like the only the only time in which i allow stuff like that is for example tim minchin yeah so you may be aware of the song fulfilled doused
00:29:01
Speaker
uh no but i haven't kept up with any timmy stuff for a long while so he went to um i know it's a thing but it's perfect so he went to edinburgh and got absolutely destroyed by a guardian commit and by a guardian reviewer who did yeah right so then his first and his next show yeah writes a song
00:29:32
Speaker
about the nature of forgiveness and he's like it doesn't matter what the name of the person is it's about how it makes me feel and about the fact that I shouldn't care about this but this is the song for Phil Danst and he's literally just sings a song about how much of an awful person he is
00:29:56
Speaker
and like one of the lines is maybe you should quit and get a job like that you'd be better at like killing yourself you fucking cunt oh my god and it's fucking crazy but if you know like the the irony of it yeah and and and what it's really doing exactly it's mocking
00:30:18
Speaker
the idea that he can't
Artistic Integrity vs. Commercial Pressures
00:30:21
Speaker
get this silly review up that one person has written that's probably reactionary anyway because, yeah, it's the Guardian, but it's still a paver. It's not there to play nice. And actually, the thing that he's mocking is how much it's affected him. How ridiculous of a response that is. But it seems like Adrian Charles
00:30:49
Speaker
He's just really mad that he's made a joke and there's no sense of self reflection or irony. He's just...
00:30:58
Speaker
he's just pissed off he is and it's really funny because funnily enough i was listening to an interview earlier today with russell kane all right um you know i don't i have i don't have an opinion one way or another about russell kane's comedy i like some of it i don't like some of it i haven't seen most of it yeah you know he's all right he's not
00:31:19
Speaker
He's a bit all over the place for me. He's not my cup of tea, but I can see what he's doing and he's good at what he does, but it's not for me. But when it comes to self-analysis and stuff like that, this interview was really interesting because he basically said that his two favourite comedians said what he considers to be his two masters.
00:31:43
Speaker
And he said every comedian should have two masters. They should have a master of the thing that they think they're trying to be. And they should have a master of something that they can never be, but like they, you know, they love it and respect it for what it is. And he says his two masters are Lee Mark, which is what he's trying to be. And Stewart Lee.
00:32:08
Speaker
And he said but the Stewart Lee is the master that he recognizes he can never be like him But you still yeah, that's interesting, you know, and and so then obviously the interview I think it's Stu Goldsmith who was interviewing him basically says well, you know, what'd you make of all that? Because obviously Stewart Lee's been very unkind In some routines, you know, he said some stuff about you He's done a routine about about you. Oh just on concom. Yeah, and Russell Kane basically said
00:32:37
Speaker
Oh, no, I love it. I think it's really funny. He says, because, you know, he says, I know Stuart Lee a little bit. You know, he's come to see my show and I've been to see his show and we've had some drinks and stuff like he's, you know, I know him a little bit. Which felt weird to hear him say that. He's like, oh, yeah, I know him a little bit. And he says, I don't want to speak our turn.
00:32:59
Speaker
He said clearly what he's doing in that routine is not saying, I hate Russell Cain and I hate his, you know, the show that he did and the award and all that. He said essentially what it is is it's him behaving like a petulant toddler because he thinks he should have an award. Yeah. And he said that's not Stewart Lee, the person that's Stewart Lee, the character behaving in that way. Yeah, he said because that's what Stewart Lee, the character would do.
00:33:25
Speaker
Yeah. And it's the same as the Graham Norton routine from Series 3 of Comedy Vehicle, which we'll get to. But people take the things that he says at face value. Yeah, not realizing that it is a character. Basically, they look at one of the best description I've heard. Again, we're going away from the Adrian Charles stuff, but to analyze this a little bit deeper.
00:33:51
Speaker
if you look at it as the Graham Norton at the Graham Norton routine which you say you've seen season three right
00:33:58
Speaker
yeah i think so yeah so yeah i've seen all the season three i can't remember that specific bit but but yeah to kind of understand the adrian charles thing and to help adrian charles understand it if he ever listens to this which would be hilarious um he won't but um you you look at the graham naughton routine which i think is a better version and an extended sort of version of this joke here about adrian charles where
00:34:23
Speaker
I think Stu himself has said that it's like an old Max Miller routine where Max Miller had this routine about a guy wanting to go get a plough back that someone had borrowed off of him.
00:34:37
Speaker
And on the way over there, he's talking to himself and he's saying, well, he's not going to give me the plowback because I owe him 50 quid. And then he keeps walking and he's like, he's definitely not going to give me the plowback because I insulted his sister and he keeps walking and he's like, he's definitely not going to give me the plowback because
00:34:57
Speaker
because, you know, I stole the milk off his doorstep or whatever. And then by the time he gets to the door, the guy opens the door and without saying anything else, he just says, you can keep your fucking plow.
Improvisation in Comedy Vehicle
00:35:09
Speaker
Right? And that's what this is, this Graham Norton routine is. And what the Adrian Charles joke is, is just it's a one sided thing that the other person just doesn't know anything about. Yeah.
00:35:25
Speaker
And it's got nothing to do with the other person. It's got nothing to do with Graham Norton. It's got nothing to do with Adrian Charles. You know, the Russell Kane bit, it's got nothing to do with Russell Kane. It's all about the petulance of the character. I would argue though that later he breaks the idea. In what sense? So my favourite bit, which we're getting to, I think that that bit
00:35:54
Speaker
isn't the character. Which bit's your favourite bit? You can flag it up now but we'll get to it when we get to it. So his hatred and my
00:36:04
Speaker
quite famous in my family at least. If you ask my wife, who do I hate the most? It's fucking Andrew Lloyd Webber. I cannot stand him. But because of the way that he says it, actually I think it's more than just a character. Because I think politically as well,
00:36:27
Speaker
what he's saying yeah lines up with what he really thinks or maybe i'm just hoping that i'm the same well i i hate him yeah but i mean listen right so you you and i both know that the whole point of when you do stand up is to you dial up the worst impulses of yourself yeah right so you know stew in stewart lee's case as he has said himself
00:36:51
Speaker
It's like, you know, bitterness, regret, anger, petulance, you know, this whole kind of like petty leftist thing that he's got going on which he says are all inside him.
00:37:06
Speaker
they're all parts of him but you keep them hidden in normal society otherwise you just wouldn't be able to function as a human like we've all got them in us right we're all cunts on the inside yeah we just keep you know like wonderful Easter message from the podcast yeah exactly yeah but
00:37:25
Speaker
You know, you might be covered in chocolate, but we're all cunts on the inside. I apologise because you haven't seen James Acaster's heckler's welcome, right? Thanks for rubbing it in again. Sorry about that. But one of the key tenets of that is he basically says that he found out in therapy that the whole this is online, by the way, so I'm not spoiling anything. You could you can watch this on YouTube. Yeah. There's like 10 minutes on YouTube.
00:37:50
Speaker
How is that? He says that his whole stand-up career has been about him trying to protect the 11-year-old boy that he was when he first got on stage, or whatever it was. So it's just all about protecting the boy. So inside him is a scared boy.
00:38:10
Speaker
Whereas inside, Stuart Lee is a rage filled lefty cunt. Right. Do you know what I mean? A petulant rage filled. Yeah. You know, inside you, Joe, you know, other than an Italian, I don't know what they might be. But, you know, inside. Actually, yeah, it was it was great for the podcast. They weren't there. But I was Italian.
00:38:38
Speaker
and then I went Turkish. And now I'm almost at English in Spain. And then if you take the full thing, it's English in a football riot.
00:39:05
Speaker
these days, if you say you're English in a football riot, you'll get arrested. But yeah, anyway, so to bring it back, so obviously he's walking through the channels and he's basically trying to sum up what each channel is, right? BBC One, it's the whole Adrian Charles joke. BBC Two, Nigella Lawson, Rick Stein, Ready Steady Cook.
00:39:32
Speaker
Watching BBC 2, I feel like I know how one of these French geese feels that stuff to make Pate and Foie Gras bloated, nauseated, frightened and yet somehow simultaneously bald. Now, when you think about those two jokes and the fact that Comedy Vehicle is on the BBC,
00:39:54
Speaker
Right. This is where I can't quite get my head around people saying that the BBC are biased. And I appreciate this was, you know, 15 years ago, 16, 17. Yeah. And now they might not be as different now because they're owned by Tories. But, you know, back then,
00:40:13
Speaker
you know, to be allowed to go out on the BBC while simultaneously savaging the BBC in two jokes. He's brilliant. And then he says, ITV1, Ant and Dex, Saturday Night Takeaway. And Ant and Dex, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here. Ant and Dex telephone voting scandal.
00:40:34
Speaker
I feel like I'm being spat at full in the face by Ant and Dec, one after the other, in any order, it makes no difference. And the interesting thing about that is... Ant's spit goes slightly faster than you'd expect. Ant's spit comes from just a little bit higher up because Dec's the little one. I was making a dangerous driving joke. Oh, fair enough. Much cleverer than I am.
00:41:03
Speaker
have quite a past eight on a Monday night, you're much cleverer than me after a full day's work. But the interesting thing about this, and I find this fascinating, Ant and Dec were actually in fist of fun.
00:41:16
Speaker
How were they? Lee and Herring reciprocated and they were on one of Ant and Dec's things. I can't remember in the 90s when everybody was just kind of on TV together.
Contrasting Nature Documentaries with Reality TV
00:41:29
Speaker
There were sevens all of them there at some point. Stuart Lee actually wrote a sitcom for Ant and Dec. Not really. To be in, yeah, they commissioned him to write a sitcom. But their agents turned it down in favor of doing a remake of The Likely Lads.
00:41:48
Speaker
Not on me as they went well. But do you know what, the sitcom idea, I've heard him talk about it a few times and it fascinates me. I'd love to see him make it with a double act from today. I don't know, like, I don't know who's a relevant double act like Jedwood. They relevant? Jedwood is like two decades ago. Fucking hell. I'm not up with popular culture. Jedwood was when, I think, was I at uni?
00:42:17
Speaker
moment slightly after that i feel like jed would are a metaphor for the the two like the two um political parties that we've got in this country right now like you can't tell them apart yeah if you really look you can kind of mainly tell you could just
00:42:39
Speaker
Either way, they're a twat. Yeah, either way, they're really irritating. Nothing can be accomplished by giving them what they want. I don't think that they're really human. They're not real. I think they have to be an A. Have you seen actual interviews with them?
00:42:55
Speaker
no they're not real people if they are there's no way they can live like that they're like it's almost like the industry plants has gone so far yeah but now they're just taking extra terrestrials that they find just let's see if we can get these on telly
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's like somebody lost a bet or something. But yeah, anyway, so he wrote this sitcom pilot for them and it was basically them two living in a lighthouse together.
00:43:26
Speaker
Oh didn't they do that with Robin Pattinson and Melinda Fire? No that's the film but you know. You're trying to tee up a joke there Joe and I missed it. It's one of my favourite films but I would love to see that.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah, but the concepts of it, right, is basically, it's like a story of the week thing where Ant and Dec are these lighthouse keepers, right? And every week they'll go down to the shore and a different thing is washed up. And that's what the episode's about, whatever. And every week Cat Daley would show up in a rowing boat.
00:44:18
Speaker
I can hear internet history is being cleared as we speak. To be honest, they probably will be after the last episode. A lot of people say have kind of decided that we're not for them now.
00:44:33
Speaker
Really? We got a really, really funny comment on Reddit the other day. Basically, I can't remember what it was. I'm going to have to find it. I can say it. It's very funny. It's like them podcasts that read mean tweets.
00:44:54
Speaker
No, it was it was genuinely, genuinely amusing. And then I petulantly responded to it. You never respond to the trolls. Unless it's not a troll and it's someone with a genuine kind of. Oh, no, it was really good. It was it was really funny. But then I sort of tried to clap back thinking I was being clever. And I wasn't.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah, so... Where is it? Oh, fucking hell. This is good listening, isn't it? Yeah, it's fine. You can put some of that whole music in. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. You will be able to edit this better as well.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Keep it in. Pretend you're French. It looks like the post has been deleted. Oh, that's annoying. Maybe they felt bad. Maybe. What was it roughly saying?
00:45:58
Speaker
So basically there was one comment that said, oh yes, the natural evolution of podcasting, repeating something that was once funny in a less funny way, which was quite amusing. That is quite funny. If magically you're still listening.
00:46:17
Speaker
that was amazing it was very funny and then there was another one um about uh it's it's weird to listen to these being analyzed in less depth than they analyze themselves
00:46:38
Speaker
which is quite funny. So basically what happened was the guy who said the first one, I just replied back and basically said, look, to analyze them in the depth required would mean we'd be talking for like five hours. We already talk enough shit as it is. You know, it would require us to talk for five hours and then he just put back would also require some effort.
00:47:04
Speaker
Right. So then I sort of petulantly clapped back. I said, yeah, more effort than it takes to like, slag something off on Reddit. But yeah, that's like, that's just asking for bother. And then in any case, something must have happened because it looks like it's been deleted now anyway. Yeah.
00:47:25
Speaker
So obviously I'm assuming a pile on ensued. Anyway, we are where we are. So that's, that's the on the deck. Now, something did a joke about Woolwuffs because he's talking about channel five. He says channel five feels like he's wandering around Woolwuffs. Remember when you used to wander around Woolwuffs and you'd think, what kind of shop is this? It sells roll plugs, Murray mints, Bratz dolls and topless calendars.
00:47:51
Speaker
Yeah, I sort of felt like when I watched it, I thought, is this... Is there an equivalent now? Yeah, the works.
00:48:04
Speaker
Well, sort of. The only one that I thought was close enough was Wilko's. Yeah, Wilko's. But Wilko's is getting shut down now as well, isn't he? Yeah, exactly. But this, in form and content-ish, is very similar to the way he talks about the works. Like, he's got a joke and I can't remember which special it's in.
00:48:29
Speaker
I think it's in Carpet Remnant World, but I can't remember where he says, he likes driving around the country because he likes going into branches of the works just to see what's in there. What books do you want? Well he does this whole routine, he says it's nominally a bookshop.
00:48:50
Speaker
Right. But you'll go in there and you'll say, oh, have you got so and so, so and so? It's a it's a new novel. Everybody says you're really good. And they'll say no. You know, they'll say, oh, have you got have you got a new novel? You know, oh, no. And then he says, have you got a triple back triple pack of Belgian horror films? A 1998 Graham Norton calendar.
00:49:18
Speaker
and then make your own concentration camp kit and they'll say yes we have got those and they're on a three for two offer right
00:49:31
Speaker
Oh, God love him. Which is effectively is the better version of the joke he does here. Yeah, yeah. What's that in Carpet Runner World? I think it's in Carpet Runner World, I can't remember. But that's, effectively, that's the evolution of this joke. So he tried to apply it to Woolworths. Obviously, it does the job, it's serviceable.
00:49:54
Speaker
But even then Wool was closed down, I think. Yeah, but then he perfected that joke. He perfected that joke then.
00:50:05
Speaker
with Carpet Ram the World. It's as if there's no guiding intelligence involved. Really, he was only using it to skew a Channel 5, as if to say it's just a hodgepodge collection of random stuff. And then obviously he gets to the Channel 4 bit, which is recycled, if you remember, from 41st Best.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah, I did pick up on that actually. Yeah. So where he kind of says, you know, when it started out, it was great. And now he says it's like a
00:50:48
Speaker
it's like a syphilitic ladies man leafing through a photograph album of all the society beauties he used to romance all of them now dead because of him which obviously he's lifted directly from 41st best you know and then he sort of says he
Public Comedy Preferences and Critique
00:51:06
Speaker
thinks e4 is worse though because channel 4 is like a flood of sewage that comes unbidden into your home whereas e4 is like you've constructed a sloosh to let it in which again he's lifted directly
00:51:16
Speaker
from from 41st best but here that's then propped up by an actual sketch of that happening which is brilliant and I know you know we're pushed for time but um where he said the the sketch itself in the in the commentary um so it's Paul Putner and uh Catherine what's her name
00:51:45
Speaker
Catherine Bradshaw. So she's in like loads of like dead serious dramas and stuff in the 90s. Paul Putner actually said that in this sketch basically it was a one-take deal obviously. Well yeah. You wouldn't want to do it again. Every time they call back to it they use the same footage in the episode. Yeah they do but they also, what I noticed is they do do it from several angles. Yeah exactly but it's still it's the exact same footage.
00:52:12
Speaker
It makes it seem slightly like it might be something different. Yeah, exactly. But he basically said that this Catherine Bradshaw basically worked out a system with the director where she would raise her hand if it got too much for her. Right. And if you watch the sketch, her hand is clearly raised.
00:52:33
Speaker
But it doesn't stop. It's powerful. She turns her head away and she kind of raises her hand like this and you can see it in the sketch. Like she's clearly sort of begging for help. Like regular water, that... Well, no it wasn't. He said it was like a weird gel. Well, you know what I mean? That even just regular water, that pressure would hurt.
00:53:03
Speaker
but yeah so like the there's two things about this so there's the bit at the end of the channel when when they do it and it comes out of the tv for channel four yeah paul puttin it improvises like a laurel and hardy esque ringing out of his shirt sleeve yeah which is really funny but then when they say should we try e4 and they pulls the lamp and e4 comes from behind them and drenches them again um
00:53:30
Speaker
He then does like that comedy. You know, like the old style cartoons where it's like a spit take.
00:53:38
Speaker
where um when it stops flowing he spits some of the excess out of his mouth yeah and apparently both of those bits were improvised um which i find quite i find quite fun um and he said the funny funny thing about it is he said uh he said that they were it was a really weird job to do because that morning he'd filmed a sketch as hitler
00:54:03
Speaker
So he filmed the sketches Hitler and then spent his afternoon getting covered in fake shit. That's a weird day. Which is pretty good. After the sketch he started talking about sort of the BBC and Lord Wreath.
00:54:26
Speaker
He was talking about how... He was the other commissioner at the time. He repeats that BBC mantra, doesn't he, like, where he says, you know, educate, inform, end to turn. And he keeps repeating this phrase, educate, inform, end to turn.
00:54:42
Speaker
He says it's an excellent phrase, but of course Lord Wreath also described Hitler as magnificently efficient Like I don't know whether he's trying to draw that parallel it's it's it's quite a spicy thing to do to steal an Alex Mitchell phrase Considering we watched last night To steal an Alex Mitchell phrase. It's quite a spicy thing to do to
00:55:12
Speaker
to sort of covertly or allude to the fact that the BBC might be Nazis whilst making a programme on the BBC. That seems quite... I mean, obviously, you know, when he gets into the later series of Company Vehicle, he outright comes and says it very soon. In the episode about death, or no, childhood it was, I think, in series four, where he sort of...
00:55:39
Speaker
look at me like I'm a commodity for your dying channel which you know so obviously as he gets more comfortable in that relationship with the BBC he kind of pushes that further
00:55:50
Speaker
Yeah. And obviously, you know, they've looked at it, their lawyers have looked at it and been like, yeah, it's fine. You can, you can allude to the fact that we're all Nazis. He says, uh, he says it was good, but he, he, um, he supported Hitler and he was a jazz racist, which he explains as Hitler's racial hatred, working on very strict principles, but Lord Reese liked to improvise.
00:56:14
Speaker
He does this quite a bit. There's other jokes that he talks about in Carpet Remnant World, I think, where he talks about a jazz chicken. He says something like a chicken, while still recognizably a chicken, uses improvisation and chance procedure to operate at the very limits of what a chicken could be.
00:56:36
Speaker
He's doing a similar thing here. And I do often wonder sometimes, because there's a lot of crossover between what happens in Comedy Vehicle and what you then end up seeing in the subsequent specials or the previous specials or whatever. Obviously, the whole Channel 4 bit was from 41st Best. And there's a lot of flavors here.
00:57:00
Speaker
you know, where he's talking about the jars of bits that would end up in, like I say, a carpet remnant world later on. And I do wonder if sometimes he just develops jokes and makes them better. I mean, I know he reuses loads of jokes. Yeah. And I don't see, you know, I don't see an issue with that at the end of the day. It's hard to write jokes.
00:57:22
Speaker
yeah as we've discussed on many occasions but you know he says he he'd come in Lord wreath had come in on different mornings and no one knew which race he was going to hit next i hate the portuguese today lord wreath you've surprised us try and keep up um
00:57:42
Speaker
And he says that, uh, and this, right. So he's kind of used this as a little bridge bit to get into the next sort of big section of what he wants to talk about. So to go from, um, you know, the state of television through to the next big bit that he wants to talk about, which is Andrew Lloyd Webber. Um, he kind of, he uses the Lord wreath bit as a bit of a bridge and he sort of says, um,
00:58:07
Speaker
You know, even though Lord Reese was a jazz racist and supported Hitler, he never commissioned anything as appalling as Andrew Lloyd Webber's Any Dream Will Do, which he says the BBC both led to a 300% increase in attendances for West End musical theatre shows, as if that were anything but an atrocity.
00:58:28
Speaker
which I find quite interesting because he's always kind of had this, and it's probably informed by his experiences, I imagine, with Jerry Springer, the opera. Yeah. Like, you know, I think he's gone on record as saying that it was great when it was like fringe theatre level.
00:58:43
Speaker
Yeah. And then as soon as it got into, you know, big venues and became, I think he saw, he mentions like theatre working on a grid where everything has to be like planned out and, you know, she's talking about loads of money and loads of sets and loads of people, whereas in a fringe theatre improvisation can happen and it's cool, which obviously seems more his speed really.
00:59:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. But I think from that experience, you know, how difficult it was to kind of take Jerry Springer from fringe level to national theatre level up to like the West End.
00:59:18
Speaker
has probably kind of soured his appreciation of Western theatre. Yeah, I would imagine so. And he sort of says, who's the real evil man? Is it Lorde Reath supporting Hitler being a jazz racist, or is it Andrew Lloyd Webber sitting back in a throne, in a throne no less, with his weird stretched face and his medieval ecclesiastical tonsure of hair?
00:59:43
Speaker
looking like a monk in a wind tunnel. Sitting there smiling to himself as he mentally calculates an estimated 10 million extra ticket sales drunk on the smell of his own farts. His own cold grey farts. Or musicals as he means to stop calling them. But he's doing that thing where he kind of gets into the thing where he drops into a rhythm of repetition so he keeps repeating the phrase cold grey farts.
01:00:11
Speaker
wind tunnel monk king, rich on your purloined gold, which in the in the commentary, it's really funny, actually, in the commentary, he said that he said that the BBC lawyers objected to the words stolen gold.
01:00:33
Speaker
So he changed it for purloined gold, which essentially means the same thing. Some people won't understand what purloined means. I genuinely think that's the thing. I think they've allowed that word through. And to be fair, rhythmically, it's quite a funny word, purloined.
01:00:50
Speaker
stolen's a bit root warning. This is the bit that I love the most. What, the Andrew Lloyd Webber fit? Yeah, because I despise him. Oh, right. OK. So it's not even necessarily, I think he'd appreciate it because it's not even that I think it's the funniest. I just agree the fuck out of it. Yeah, but that's kind of what he wants.
01:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, so as we both know, as a massive musical theatre aficionado, I can't stand Andrew Lloyd Webber shows. They're just boring.
01:01:27
Speaker
And actually, you can tell that he is just rich and old and can do what he wants because he has a certain level of status because the masses will go, ooh. He's got a name, hasn't he? He could put out any old piece of shit now. Exactly. But the issue is, is his shows then prevent
01:01:55
Speaker
like more innovative stuff coming through because the theatres are so much, like you've said, built on profit. So of course they're going to go for the Andrew Lloyd Webber rather than the untested stuff. Yeah, but the untested stuff might be just as good if not
01:02:20
Speaker
like actually better, like there is a, well there was anyway, a musical called Bad Cinderella. That was a reworking of the story of Cinderella, but like I say a modernized version, but it wasn't. That sounds like one of those Jim Davidson pantomimes. No, it was worse than that in some way. It was just sort of
01:02:49
Speaker
It was meant to be that she's a bad Cinderella, like she's punk rock. Yeah. And that sort of thing. And I was forced to go watch it by my wife because the woman who played Cinderella, Carrie Hope Fletcher is quite famous. OK. Also, I mean, I'm not not a fan of her either, but never mind. She is the sister of Tom Fletcher.
01:03:12
Speaker
off of McFly. Yeah. So there's a lot of like nepotism. Like she is very good. Like she's a very good singer and all that. I'm not going to disparage her talent. Yeah. But I was forced to go see it because my wife loves that woman. And it was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. Well, I think that was just horrific. I as an aside, I wish I was a nipple, baby. Well, yeah, exactly. It's just not fair.
01:03:41
Speaker
It'd be great. I'd love it. It'd be incredibly fair if it was happening to me. But the point that he makes about him being literally on a throne and just having zero amount of self-awareness of how amusing that is, that he lives and dies by his approval. People live and die by his approval. Yeah. Because that actually is the case in the industry.
01:04:08
Speaker
The thing is though, no one's looking at musical theatre directors and composers as like the bastion of self-awareness, let's be honest. The point is that there could be, so I'm part of...
01:04:23
Speaker
Like I was going to say an underground thing, but like the more entry level, shall we say, that has the talent. So similar to, let's bring it back to comedy, but similar to like the fringe sort of stuff where you'll find the interesting stuff.
01:04:42
Speaker
you'll find the artistically relevant stuff. But because it's not, even though it's not commercial, anything that has artistic value is commercial to a certain extent. But because it's not commercial to the extent that they want it.
01:05:05
Speaker
then it's deemed as being unworthy yeah and this is the point that he is a part of that this is the point that stew actually goes on to make you know he sort of talks about um talks about andrew lloyd whether she was kind of being like cold gray farts but then he basically says that um great art should be mysterious great art should be opaque and of course it's possible
01:05:31
Speaker
to make a sort of Saturday night game show out of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, because an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is already facile, you know, it's already the kind of thing that you're going to expect from, you know, Saturday night entertainment. You look at the kind of Saturday night entertainment that we've got now, Ant and Dec's Saturday night take away, Michael McIntyre's The Wheel.
01:05:49
Speaker
all that kind of stuff. They're easy to understand formats that everyone can digest featuring people that everyone's heard of. I would go so far as to say that there are occasionally interesting people or people who I think are interesting on some of these shows. Like, for example, I don't know how you might feel about this, but I quite like Lucy Beaumont as a performer. I think she's very fun.
01:06:15
Speaker
Nah, I think she's brilliant. But she's at that level of fame now where she's starting to pop up in these kinds of things and I... Yeah. Whilst I'm not for kind of like that, that, you know, as he says, facile, Saturday night entertainment type stuff, I do think when someone not of that sphere pops up in it, I find it quite interesting just to see what happens. Well, just as I heard on from Orger Koch,
01:06:41
Speaker
on the Comedians' Comedian podcast. You can't pay your bills with hope. And it's that sort of thing that you sometimes have to sell your soul.
01:06:56
Speaker
Yeah, critical acclaim doesn't pay the rent, does it? No. You need to be at that. And I would suggest, Stuart Lee, certainly now, maybe not for the entirety of his career, obviously. I think he spent the first 10 or 15 years struggling to make it work. But certainly from, let's say, maybe
01:07:22
Speaker
milder comedian onwards he was probably in a position where he he sat at that that junction between being artistically interesting and relevant and and kind of respected whilst also pulling in some decent numbers and being able to have a house and you know he he's kind of he's got a good kind of um a good place in the whole the whole hierarchy of the thing i would suggest um
01:07:51
Speaker
Now, but again, you know, I'd appreciate it. It's probably, it's not always been that way. It's not always been someone with a BBC TV show and you know, thousands upon thousands. I think what they say last like a quarter of a million people come and see him on tour or whatever, you know, that's incredible numbers, but he's managed to do that while staying sort of.
01:08:12
Speaker
from an integrity point of view, like artistically where he wants to be, but as he himself has said, he can afford to do that. It's difficult for us newer comics to turn down opportunities. If someone said to me, you know, I'll front you a tour and I'll do all this stuff for you, but what you have to do is endorse this product on Instagram and be like, yep. Oh yeah, absolutely.
01:08:40
Speaker
If anybody is wanting to take my soul for some magic beans, that's absolutely fine by me.
01:08:55
Speaker
But anyway, right. So, yeah, so, you know, he makes the point that that these things are they're facile, they're not mysterious, they're not opaque. You can make Saturday Night TV out of them, which obviously then leads into the parody sketch of that, which is was it called I Should Be So Lucky or something like that, where it's Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Yeah, which as a 30 gig, I adore.
01:09:20
Speaker
Yeah, it was brilliant. And what I really liked about it was I didn't realize this, but obviously they got an actor to play Samuel Beckett. Yeah. But that voice is overdubbed. Yeah, it's Peter Sarafenowitz. Yeah. Which is because I can recognize that voice anywhere, mainly because
01:09:43
Speaker
I'm a nerd and he's Darth Maul. But like, in that voice, I can just hear it. Yeah, you know, you know, it's him, don't you? But yeah, it's in some way recognisable, I think, for a lot of people. What I kind of love about it is just that that kind of like really cheesy Saturday night announcer guy saying the phrase, only the chosen one will win the chance to earn ยฃ364 a week equity minimum wage performing the role.
01:10:11
Speaker
To a bored GCSE student Like it's just it's pitch perfect in terms of it's like satire, but then obviously it comes back to pulls back to reveal that It's on the television of these two people sat there, you know from the Channel 4 sketch
01:10:31
Speaker
Yeah. And the guy says, or pretentious rubbish, put it on four again. And you see that footage again of them getting smashed in the face with the sewage. Um, you know, and to be fair.
01:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, but to be fair as well, if I'd, because I imagine that sewage gag cost a lot to rig up. You want to make the most of it. Yeah, you use it as many times as possible. Get a speech. Bang for your buck. Anyway, so the sketch is over and he starts talking about David Attenborough.
01:11:04
Speaker
But what I love about it is where he sort of says the BBC do one thing brilliantly and that thing is David Attenborough. The BBC do the thing of David Attenborough brilliantly. You know, David Attenborough believes in television. David Attenborough believes that you can learn about insects by making a documentary where you look at insects' lives and they're feeding habits and they're courtship dances.
01:11:27
Speaker
But David Attenborough would not think that you could learn anything about insects by flinging insects into the very brown face of Robert Kilroy silk. Which is great because you know who Robert Kilroy silk is. Yeah, exactly. It's really funny because he's like a poster boy for the sort of right wing. I don't know upper class right wing.
01:11:54
Speaker
I don't even want to use the word bigot, but you know what I mean, like, yeah. And the funny thing, I do wonder whether he found a joke or, you know, he wrote it in such a way as to accommodate the name Robert Kilroy Silk or whether he picked Robert Kilroy Silk because it's a funny name. Maybe. Do you know what I mean? Possibly both.
01:12:19
Speaker
But it's really funny, though, if you read this, right, if you read this routine and you say you don't even really learn anything about Robert Kilroy Silk from flinging insects into the berry brown face of Robert Kilroy Silk, other than that Robert Kilroy Silk does look like having insects flung into his berry brown face, repetition thing of, you know, the Stuart Lee trope. But he's basically talking about Robert Kilroy Silk being in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
01:12:46
Speaker
And he's making a very similar point to essentially one that could be made now about Nigel Farage. You take Robert Kilroy Silk out of the equation and put Nigel Farage in there, you could write the same joke essentially. And even in his newspaper columns, he called out Ant and Dec for, I can't remember the phrase that he used, but essentially enabling a right wing sort of fascist.
01:13:12
Speaker
yeah um by i don't know what i think yeah but just by him being on i'm a celebrity and them being like the face of i'm a celebrity um yeah it's an endorsement isn't it to some extent yeah i think that's the point you made in his observer column and you know that's kind of why he's skewering robert kilroy silk here is because obviously he's he's kind of a right wing
01:13:34
Speaker
or he was at the time a bit of a right-wing poster boy. And he says, Ant and Dec are the smiling apologists for television's worst excesses. Their souls are caked in sin and yet they never grow old. We grow old, you grow old, I grow old, but Ant and Dec do not grow old. David Attenborough is very old. He's so old he can remember when Charles Darwin first brought him back from the Galapagos Islands.
01:14:03
Speaker
You know, and then he, he starts, he goes into that, can't remember where the phrase is from. Is it Dorian Gray? Where he says, age shall not wither them, nor the years condemn. Because I know the sketch, you know, the sketch with Simon and Miles Jupp, where
01:14:26
Speaker
Monterrey's doing a painting and Miles Jupp sat there posing for this painting and they're talking about, did you see Ant McPartland and Declan Donnelly on television last night? And he says, no, sir, because television isn't invented for another 300 years. Yeah, no, it's from a poem. Oh, is it? From the Fallen. On Cultured Swine. Yeah, it's from the Fallen, so it's about World War I. All right, OK.
01:14:58
Speaker
published 1914, so it'll be. I knew I knew the phrase, I just didn't know where from. Age might wither them, or shall not wary them. Nor the years condemn. Nor the years condemn because they've died. Of course, yes. I mean, I knew I knew the phrase, I just didn't know where I knew it from, and I just thought with it going into the Dorian Gray sketch. Yeah. But I don't know why, I just, there's something, I find Miles Jupp fascinating.
01:15:28
Speaker
because he's essentially like a toff yeah but he's a self-aware toff he's a toff but he's a self-aware toff and like if you look at like the way that he came up he sort of came up doing like shit gigs with like frankey boil he was like good pals with frankey boil um and then he was like he did like kids tv he did balamori and all this like yeah yeah i forgot weird shit
01:15:55
Speaker
I just I don't know I just it's a strange one you know when when really posh people are kind of or they seem I don't know him obviously but are they seem quite down to earth yeah but I just I find him quite interesting because he can almost you can almost like move in any circle you know what I mean like I think because he's got that that ability for people to be like oh actually you're not a cunt
01:16:20
Speaker
Have you ever seen his, he did McIntyre's comedy roadshow back when that was a thing? I've seen it because it's McIntyre. His set on comedy roadshow was so good. He's opening a joke. He's so good. He comes out and he says, I'm very privileged to be here. And then he says, I'm just very privileged in general. Yeah, I'm quite a lucky man.
01:16:51
Speaker
I like him on Would I Lie to You? Yeah, he's very funny on Would I Lie to You. I like him on 8 out of 10 cats as well. I think it's, whichever one it is, I can't remember. In my opinion, I think it's actually. Yeah. Where he's, someone challenges him to something. Yeah. And he's like, should we bet? How much? I don't know. A grand. A grand? I don't know why I thought that was on cats, wasn't it?
01:17:21
Speaker
I don't know either. I think he was talking to Sean Lock. He was just some, I might be catch this countdown. Yeah. I think he was, he was having a bet with Sean Lock. Yeah. Yeah. But it's the idea that he's self-aware enough to make that joke. Yeah. That to him a grand is nothing. Yeah. I think give a shit. It's probably more than his appearance fee for that program. Probably. Yeah. He won't give a shit. Um, but no, I do, I do like him. I think he's very fun. No, he probably got put, he
01:17:50
Speaker
I reckon with what we know about Mock the Week, that a grand rule of him more than he got paid. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. But no, I quite like him. I'd be interested to see his new show, actually, because apparently he recently had a brain tumor. Oh, really? And his new show is all about finding out he'd like collapsed on the set of a film or something he was doing. Oh, wow. And I don't know why. I've just I've got this morbid curiosity for shows about tragedy.
01:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. I really like tragedy shows, like... I'm trying to think, like, obviously, you know, the net was kind of like the big one where it was like...
01:18:32
Speaker
Yeah and that is one of my favourites. You didn't know that that was what it was going to be when you went into it but that bit where she flips the switch at the end was really interesting. I just like I really want to watch Paul Foote's new show. I like Paul Foote a lot but I've heard that his new show is quite sort of profound and I'm always a big fan of seeing how can you make like profound. I heard the same about Dara Breen. Such a good show.
01:18:57
Speaker
The new one. Yeah, it's brilliant. Yeah, same. I tell you what, the other one as well, the other big one is Ed Byrne's new show. Yeah, it's not on NextUp. What, his new show? Yeah. No, because he's still touring it. Yeah, yeah. But when it comes out. But yeah, it's, I saw it in Edinburgh and obviously I only got to see like the hour. It changed me plus time.
01:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, I only got to see the hour-long Edinburgh version of it, but fucking hell. You know, and I saw Stuart Lee twice that Edinburgh last time. But Ed Byrne's show was the best show I saw that year.
01:19:39
Speaker
It's just, yeah, it really kind of like left an impression on me. But anyway, we got there via talking about Miles Jupp because he's in this sketch. I really like this sketch. We don't need to get to the end of this episode at some point. Fucking hell, it would help on it. But yeah, I do really like that sketch. I like anything with Monterrey in it, to be honest with you. Big fan of Simon Monterrey.
01:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, then he kind of uses that again as a bridge to talk about March of the Penguins.
01:20:13
Speaker
Um, it's weird. These, these little bits here seem to be like really tiny bits to get from sketch to sketch. Yeah. Um, like this is, I suppose, you know, it probably helps. Like you said about the whole ADHD brain thing of it helps break it up for you. Um, but for me, it like really disrupted the floor. Cause I find as soon as I'm getting into a bit, it's like, okay, cut to a sketch, which basically explains the entire premise of the bit. Yeah.
01:20:42
Speaker
you know you're like all right okay well i don't need to go any further with that then um you know and i'm fairly sure you understand that you're not going to do another 20 minute rant on that one thing yeah no of course you're like oh that bit's over
01:20:58
Speaker
But like I say, if you, you know, if you think about later series of comedy vehicle, again, three and four, it literally was 27 minutes of thematic material. There was no cut to sketches. Yeah. The sketches were, were like at the end and, you know, occasionally cut to the, the kind of interrogate character, Chris Morris or whoever, and fine. But.
01:21:20
Speaker
I don't know, I just felt it flowed better in later series. This felt a bit jerky to me. But yeah, so he starts talking about March of the Penguins and about how it's the worst nature documentary of all time. Because it was like, I think he said it was a French film redubbed by Americans and it was a massive hit with the religious right in America.
01:21:43
Speaker
because it's essentially about how penguins pair off in a monogamous fashion and raise their chicks in that kind of like, you know, I can't remember what the phrase was used, but it's like, you know, it's sort of like they're the perfect example of that kind of like conservative. Yeah. I don't know what used to be called like a nuclear family. Yeah. You know, that's kind of how penguins behave.
01:22:11
Speaker
And he says that he knows that David Attenborough would have been suspicious of this. And that he started reading about the mallards, the mallard duck, which also occurs in nature. The mallard is the only animal which reproduces exclusively by gang rape, which seemed a bit jarring for me. It didn't feel like a Stuart Lee thing.
01:22:32
Speaker
But I kind of get it, you know what I mean? He's made it his by talking about these really harsh things in this really sort of surreal way. But it's the only bird to have ever been caught on film indulging in the act of homosexual necrophilia.
01:22:51
Speaker
You know, these are two, they're two things, right? That in the hands of, you know, as we've seen a bunch of times at Open Mic Nights, in the hands of people who don't know how to use those phrases, killer room. They're just killer room. What's that gang rape? Okay, I'm not listening though. You know, there's so much of that, but because of the way he's kind of gone about it and he's framed it as, he's framed it with March of the Penguins. Like you sort of intent on, okay, how's he going to tie these two things together?
01:23:21
Speaker
and like you know the context of who he is yeah exactly yeah yeah as well that you know he's not doing it frivolously yeah yeah you know so he says he wants to raise money to do a documentary called march of the mallards which will prove that nature wants us to be evil um
01:23:40
Speaker
that it'll have a voiceover from Morgan Freeman going, there goes that little mallard raping that dead mallard in his dead ass. Which, you know, is funny, but as far as like, stewardly bits go. Do you know what I mean? It's quiet. Yeah, it's not the best. I don't know. It's probably about as lowbrow
01:24:09
Speaker
Like, and you know, we've, we've talked about him doing jokes about farts and stuff like that, but they, they sort of elevated them a little bit. Whereas to my mind, this bit is more just, you know, ha ha Morgan Freeman said.
01:24:22
Speaker
ripping his dead ass. So I don't know, this bit just didn't really do it for me, but I appreciate that personal taste rather than sort of anything else. I felt like it was kind of there to justify the sketch really, but I could be wrong.
01:24:44
Speaker
you know and then uh then you've got the little sketch which is essentially a penguin narrating Morgan Freeman having sex yeah and the the penguin narration was done by Stuart Lee as well apparently
01:25:01
Speaker
So I thought it was him doing that, the penguin noises. But, you know, a match of the penguins, most successful documentary of all time. Any dream will do a hugely related, hugely rated television programme. And then he sort of turned it back on the public. He says, well,
01:25:20
Speaker
what is it that you want you know it's very it's very difficult to know when you look at those two things what is it that the public want it's easy to blame program makers and schedulers for these things but you're complicit because you watch them yeah um you know what is it that you want i'll tell you what and he turns to the sort of camera and he says i'll tell you what i don't understand about you thanks for watching but what is it that you want um because every couple of years there's a survey where the public
01:25:46
Speaker
not the people in the room he says the people in the room you've come out to stuff you're good people you've come out to live entertainment but you people the people at home not them look at them but you every couple of years you do a survey and you're asked for the funniest thing on television and you always pick del boy falling through the bar which is true you know anytime there's a there's a thing it is a very good scene but but the funny bit of this is how
01:26:17
Speaker
obsessed with their ears.
01:26:20
Speaker
yeah i mean for me right this bit does two things and i really like it because it's doing that classic stewartly thing of being a rant about something yeah it's him losing his temper in character clearly a more successful and commercially viable thing than he is yeah so you know subtextually he's saying why can't you laugh at me as as you laugh as much as you laugh at that you know he's kind of saying
01:26:51
Speaker
Well, he's doing two things to me. You know, this may be obvious to people listening and I'm sure it is. And I'm entirely sure Reddit will let me know. But he's doing two. Yeah, exactly. We wouldn't have listeners without them.
01:27:08
Speaker
He's doing two things, right? He's... You might not soon. Yeah, exactly. He might not have any at
Sketch Analysis and Rural Life Parody
01:27:13
Speaker
all. But he's simultaneously saying that he's jealous and he wishes he was that funny. But that also he's trying to have his cake and eat it by saying that it's not funny.
01:27:27
Speaker
yeah do you know what i mean whilst secretly saying yeah i knew exactly which you can and that's what's good about it you know if you listen to the way that he describes it let's have a look at that let's see how funny it is so he's standing at the bar isn't he del boy and then that's raised and he goes oh
01:27:43
Speaker
And he says, Del by Stew, he fell through the bar and only fools and horses. And it's the funniest thing there's ever been on television ever. He fell through the bar, Stu. And again, I can't remember who it was on the commentary that asked him, but someone said to him, you know, when you do that, that second voice where it's someone talking to you, he fell through the bar, Stu. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen, Stu. And the two people, you know, Kevin Elden and Paul Pottinger on the commentary with him said, is that Richard Herring?
01:28:14
Speaker
Because if you listen to it and then you listen to any of Herring's sort of stand up or when he kind of gets animated in that kind of high pitched way, it is a pitch perfect impression of him. And he was, you know, Stuart Lee in the commentary was quite coy of sort of not outright saying, yes, it's an impression of Richard Herring. But he basically said, I was in a double act for such a long time and this is me doing the secondary voice. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's me doing the silent second partner. Yeah, which is.
01:28:43
Speaker
it's Richard Herring I think yeah and you can you can tell you know because he fell through the bar he was very close to you and he became horizontal and then Trigger made a face Delboy Stu David Jason from Inspector of Face you know when he plays the scene as well yeah he doesn't even make that much of a face not really he says I don't know what I like about it is that
01:29:07
Speaker
He's got that kind of version of it in his head that actually isn't even as good as he's thinking that it is. But because he's obsessing over it. But then he gets fixated on Inspector Frost because he says David Jason from Inspector Frost. No, Stu, Inspector Frost didn't fall through the bar. He wouldn't do something so frivolous like that. Inspector Frost would apprehend a pedophile and then Trigger would make a face.
01:29:38
Speaker
starts mixing his metaphors and stuff. It's really funny.
01:29:43
Speaker
But this is what I'm saying. He's like, he kind of works himself up into a frenzy. Yeah. And shouting play it again, play it again every Christmas and over and over until the death of recorded time. Play it again until the rocks melt and seas burn. Del boy falling through the bar. And he sort of does. He goes on this massive. Ram. Right. About it being the funniest thing on television ever. And then he says, that's what you like. Um,
01:30:12
Speaker
and then obviously they show the clip and then they show the sketch, which for me is my favourite sketch of the whole thing. It's such a good... because they've kind of framed it like Wicker Man. Do you know what I mean? It's like Wicker Man meets this country, meets that sort of
01:30:38
Speaker
kind of in the middle of nowhere but like this country before this country existed yeah i know that's what i mean but like so like
01:30:48
Speaker
It's not so far out of the realm of the possibility. No, is it because you expect listen I I live in a small village, right? Yeah, it's not quite to that extent. But I live in a small village. So I recognize some of the the things that he's skew in there. But I tell you where I do recognize it from is that my I have some relatives that live in the village of Evesham in the Midlands. Right. And every year they have like an asparagus festival.
01:31:18
Speaker
and they have like you know they've got like Morris dancers and all this kind of stuff and it's a great you know it's really fun to kind of see there's a lot of stuff goes on in the in the village and it's brilliant but there is shades of that kind of for the greater good you know there's yeah there's that to it which I think is kind of what he's catching them swans then yeah exactly yeah
01:31:42
Speaker
That's such a good film. It's my favourite element so much. Brilliant, brilliant film. It's the ones won actually. Exactly, yeah. I think that's kind of like, that's the insinuation that he's making.
01:31:57
Speaker
is that dark undercurrent of seemingly quaint village life. And I love how he manages to covertly get a couple... He's got those digs in at the church. There's a bit in the sketch where he's talking to the vicar.
01:32:14
Speaker
where he says to him, the quiet master and myself are going to dress as women later on, we're going to be the ladies in the wine bar who tempt Delboy to his almighty fall. And as so often with these traditions, it's full of Christian symbolism because it's Delboy's pride and Delboy's lust that lead him like Adam to fall.
01:32:34
Speaker
It's actually quite a good... It is really funny. Something you would expect to make it to say. Yeah, exactly. What he doesn't want to say is, oh, I like it because it's really funny and it's kind of a bit bawdy and a bit whatever. Because obviously it's Del by trying to get laid, basically. Yeah. I just didn't even just try to look cool.
01:32:58
Speaker
yeah but um then stewartly obviously interviewing the vicar says the church of england's always been very good hasn't it accommodating these kind of events he says we have a halloween themed service in the church for the children every year and last month i blessed the electric wheelchair of a splendid old lady but then stewartly says would you bless a civil partnership and the guy just goes no
01:33:26
Speaker
Which is brilliant. But then obviously it gets into that. That's more than they believe in wheelchairs. They like to wheelchairs more than games. Which, you know, it's probably true. But then the kind of like, you know, darkness falls and all that kind of stuff and it becomes really like wicker man.
01:33:49
Speaker
ish with like the lit torches and the kind of chanting, play it cool son. That kind of stuff, it becomes really sort of obvious what it is that they're trying to say. It's really well done that actually it's quite enjoyable to watch. Oh it's mental. I found myself wanting to actually just, I was like I wish that was an extended documentary that I could just watch.
01:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Obviously, it's all parody and it's all bollocks because, you know, the farmer that he interviews is obviously Kevin Elden. Yeah. And apparently that was completely like improvised.
01:34:29
Speaker
hmm you know he didn't there was nothing nothing written for it he just asked him a couple of questions and Kevin Eldon just went off on but yeah so that I really really like that sketch I think I think in terms of certainly in terms of season one I mean obviously I know we haven't watched all the season one for this yet have you seen any of the others by the way I'll just these two no I wanted to make sure that I had this
01:34:58
Speaker
I mean, I'd watched them years ago, but from what I can remember, this sketch was always kind of like my favourite. It's just, I just think it's so well done and obviously you can see that there was a real budget for it. Yeah, they've actually made it. It's not just
01:35:17
Speaker
Oh, there's a place that does that. Ha ha. That's so funny. You know, like you could see how if you go to any of the sketches throughout the series. So look at the Tony, the little Tony law sketch of the Doctor parody and the Dan Brown books in the last episode or like the Dorian Gray sketch here or, or whatever. Um, they're probably not that expensive sketch.
01:35:40
Speaker
Well, yeah, the the others probably aren't that expensive to make, but you can tell a lot of money or a relatively large amount of money has been put into the telephone for sketch because they use it about eight times. Yeah. And it clearly, you know, it clearly cost a lot of money to do.
01:35:56
Speaker
But then also this one looked like a sort of fairly big undertaking as well. But I imagine that, you know, if it were to be made today, the budget would be so much smaller. Like they just wouldn't, they wouldn't get the budget for it. And it's funny actually, have you watched the King Roca documentary?
01:36:19
Speaker
No. All right. Well, we'll we'll probably get to that at some point because it's part of the canon of Stuart Lee. But if if we get to that some point, we'll watch that. And he I'm sure he said that it was made for about a third of the amount of one episode of Comedy Vehicle.
01:36:38
Speaker
So I imagine there was fairly decent budgets for this stuff. Yeah. So anyway, you know, go back to the stand up. And by this point, he's lost his mind about the funniest thing on television ever, Del Boy falling through the bar. And he says, I just think it was fortunate that Sir Isaac Newton did not share the sense of humour of a member of the public because he'd done so. He would have been so amused by the simple effects of gravity that he would have never got round to making a comprehensive study of its causes. Yeah.
01:37:05
Speaker
And he's hanging off the railings and he's had an absolute meltdown by this point. And he's kind of said in the commentary that he didn't really have a plan. It was just... I think it would have been better finishing it with that as his... What a comprehensive study of its causes. Yeah.
01:37:30
Speaker
Um, we even says that then he says that's the punchline, the phrase, a comprehensive study of its causes. I agree then.
01:37:39
Speaker
I smashed my head repeatedly on the floor as a lead up to this line, a comprehensive study of its causes. Will you be repeating it at work? No. And I'm aware that I say this to you hanging precariously from an art deco balcony and I do so deliberately in the hope that I will fall to my death and you will learn about the thin line between slapstick and tragedy. Which is, for me, hilarious because he's hanging literally about two foot off the ground. Yeah, yeah.
01:38:07
Speaker
yeah even if he falls yeah it pretty bruises elbows or something yeah but like what i really like about this is that he says uh where have you left me literally hanging because the point where i thought this routine would peak turned out to be 90 seconds earlier than where i thought it would
01:38:25
Speaker
this is dead time but we can't leave we can't stop for the viewers at home until these people have been provided some sense of closure and then obviously they start to applaud and he kind of chastises himself for begging for the applause yeah it's undignified but it still counts yeah and that's his last line yeah which is what to be honest i think it ended in that like rather than the last episode which i think ended
01:38:52
Speaker
It should have ended, I think, before it did, you know, there's a great punchline and then obviously rambled on for a couple of sentences afterwards and ended on something underwhelming, which now that I think back on it is very Stuart Lee, to be fair. Yeah. You know, it's probably the way that the character of Stuart Lee would do that. But this one here, I think, ended exactly where it should. I just love the phrase, it's undignified, but it still counts. I just I think I think that
01:39:19
Speaker
To me, that's... Yeah, I think my perfect kind of thing, I would rather it end on the punchline. But again, that's my... I don't know. I think if you look at it the right way, it's undignified, but it still counts. Oh, that's still a punchline. Do you know what I mean? It's like proper... Yeah. Properly structured as a punchline. It's a nicer package.
01:39:45
Speaker
Yeah. But again, it's personal preference, isn't it? Yeah. And I think it was hard to end on that, obviously. No, but I'm much, you know, again, right. So what I will say here, knowing full well that in 2009 or whatever it was when this came out,
01:40:04
Speaker
It was not aimed at me, don't come again. It wasn't aimed at whatever 23-year-old office workers. That's not who Comedy Vehicle was made for. So it's all right for me to sit here and say, I think this was the much more superior ending, blah, blah, blah.
Future Episodes and Technical Reflections
01:40:24
Speaker
This is the type of ending I would prefer for Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. It gives a shit. It wasn't made for me. I still don't think it was made for me.
01:40:33
Speaker
No, it's not, you know, it's not, it's not made for anyone. This isn't entertainment as Stuart Lee himself has said before. This isn't meant to be seen. But yeah, and then obviously it ends properly. The episode ends properly on the Channel 4 sketch.
01:40:52
Speaker
So it just repeats the exact same sketch that they did for the Andrew Lloyd Webber, Samuel Beckett stuff. And it's just Paul putting the same pretentious rubbish, put it on for again. Yeah. And then obviously it comes flying out. And like you say, you can tell it's the same sketch because her hand goes up again in the same place. But for me, I didn't agree with you at first.
01:41:22
Speaker
about this episode being better than the first one. And I got 100% sure whether I still do, but there are elements of this one that are much better than the first one. The sketches are definitely better. But I think the stand up in the first one, just because, like I said, just because it's got the rap singers bit for me, which is like,
01:41:47
Speaker
I don't know. It's like it's like a distilled essence of kind of what it is that he does. Yeah. Whereas here he tries to do it. I think he does something similar with the Robert Kilroy Silk Berry Brown face bit. But it's not as repetitious and sort of grinding and monotonous and horrible. No, which is probably why it's more palatable to me. Yeah, maybe so. No, give me the. The long drawn out stuff. Give me something in a rhythm that I understand.
01:42:16
Speaker
title of your sex tape indeed um so yeah just i suppose final summation of this episode joe television episode two yeah um as i've said i really like it i think it's good um that scene that sketch just really topped it off do you think that's why you do you know that's why you like it so much because of the dell boy stuff i think the dell boy stuff does
01:42:44
Speaker
strike a nerve in that I find it funny, but also I think the sketch is really well done. That's the thing that brings it together for me. They're coming to arrest you Joe.
01:43:00
Speaker
hide quick yeah i think i agree with because like i said stewart lee did say in the commentary that he felt the stand-up on this one was more self-conscious and less you know it wasn't as good as the first episode which i think i tend to agree with the sketches are far superior here um so yeah i think i think that's it for me really um
01:43:24
Speaker
What was I going to say? So obviously we recently put out the live episode, the Leicester episode. So hopefully people enjoy that. I tried to fix the audio, but it didn't work. Kind of think it's listenable. It's just about listenable. It's tricky, but you know, it is what it is. The lessons were learned and
01:43:49
Speaker
We'll get it right in Brighton. I need to actually book some guests for Brighton though, to be fair. We've got no money in the bank. Andrew and Tom doing one of the nights and then the other night I'm not sure who we're going to get yet. I haven't managed to... Can you say we? Yeah, I'm going to say I keep saying we. I'm saying the Royal We because obviously, unfortunately, you're not going to be able to be there this time. No. It's just going to be me and whoever our guest is shouting into the void. Yeah, Jules unfortunately did not align.
01:44:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's not ideal. I might get a special guest host to come and pretend to be you. That'd be quite funny. Good luck. I might get one of the Santiago's regulars to come and do a Joe impression. I might see what Alex is up to. I'd love to hear that. I'll see what Alex is up to. I would love to hear Alex's... impression of you. I was going to say what he thinks of Joe Lee.
01:44:50
Speaker
uh yeah i mean i can't see it being his bag if i'm honest but yeah there'll definitely be someone who wants to take the piss out of me yeah but pick someone out of the queue yeah i'll just i'll show him a picture of you and say do you think you can do an impression of this man nah
01:45:09
Speaker
We'll do it that way. But yeah, so that was episode two, television, and we'll be back fairly soon whenever Joe and I can align our schedules to do episode three. Cool. Thanks, everyone. Bye.