TV Week: Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, I've Never Seen Star Wars and Genius
By Dan Owen
One half of '90s double-act Lee & Herring (alongside Richard Herring), Stewart Lee has gone on to make a name for himself on the comedy circuit and a gifted stand-up and co-creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera. He has a smug, squinty, caustic, deliberate style that some will find aloof and tedious, while others will be charmed by the incisive wit his laid-back delivery hides.
STEWART LEE'S COMEDY VEHICLE is essentially one-man stand-up, televised from a comedy club setting. There are brief interludes for home viewers (a Kevin Eldon sketch, most notably), but most of the trimmings are only there to comically illustrate something Lee mentions (a faux Amazon recommendations widgets, Radio 4 comedy writers speaking in oscillating voices.)
One half of '90s double-act Lee & Herring (alongside Richard Herring), Stewart Lee has gone on to make a name for himself on the comedy circuit and a gifted stand-up and co-creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera. He has a smug, squinty, caustic, deliberate style that some will find aloof and tedious, while others will be charmed by the incisive wit his laid-back delivery hides.
STEWART LEE'S COMEDY VEHICLE is essentially one-man stand-up, televised from a comedy club setting. There are brief interludes for home viewers (a Kevin Eldon sketch, most notably), but most of the trimmings are only there to comically illustrate something Lee mentions (a faux Amazon recommendations widgets, Radio 4 comedy writers speaking in oscillating voices.)
To be honest, these were distractions that didn't really add anything, beyond provide employment for the likes of Simon Munnery. The joy of stand-up is having someone fill your head with mental imagery, so cutting to an illustrative sketch inspired by one of Lee's comments worked against that alchemy.
The target this week was "celebrity fiction", with particular indignation reserved for the retarded writing of Dan Brown (author of "The Da Vinci Code"), the general inanity of Chris Moyles' best-selling "The Difficult Second Book", and So Solid Crew rapper Asher D's photo-laden autobiography where he blithely compares himself to Jesus.
Many of his observations were astute and very funny (noticing that Moyles described his own work as a "toilet book", but a cover quote from Davina McCall described it as "butt-clenchingly honest"), but a few were too rambling, or lacked a decent pay-off. Lee has a tendency to stretch certain jokes past breaking point -- best exemplified by his describing of "the rap singers" like a middle-aged fart, which overran by minutes.
I'm also certain that Lee's brand of withering sarcasm will annoy plenty of people with a cheerier outlook on life, despite the fact it's very tongue-in-cheek. After all, if you overanalyze anything you can find comical discrepancies and amusingly hypocritical or egotistical sentiments. But you cant deny there were some very funny observations and tirades about literature here: on being asked if he's read the latest Harry Potter ("no, but I have read the complete works of visionary poet William Blake, so fuck off!"), or his belief that buying Jeremy Clarkson books on Amazon takes thousands of man-hours to rectify, as the website starts recommending you buy "Mein Kampf". BBC2, MON, 10PM.
BBC Radio 4 comedy I'VE NEVER SEEN STAR WARS transferred to television recently, presented by Dominic Brigstocke -- a stand-up comedian who resembles a geography teacher, and who's apparently determined to find fame by appearing on every British satirical show in existence.
INSSW is a variant of Room 101, where a weekly celebrity guest must talk amusingly about a certain topic. In the aforementioned series, it was pet hates; in this show it's things they've never experienced, but wish they had. Of course, a proviso is that each guest gets to plug the gaps in their life-experience beforehand, then relate everything to Brigstocke. The first guest was Clive Anderson who, amongst other things, revealed he'd never played the National Lottery, watched Withnail & I, sat down and read "Men Are From Mars, Woman Are From Venus", or taken Judo lessons. The second edition featured Mastemind's John Humphrys harrumphing over Chris Moyles' "pub talk" on his breakfast show and The Da Vinci Code.
It's a show that clearly relies on its guests and their choices to amuse. I don't hate Anderson, but it's difficult to remember why he was a fairly big star back in the '90s, despite the fact his enduring legacy is being bumbling while hosting Whose Line Is It Anyway. His wit has long since been exposed as relying solely on daft word-play, too. His choices here were uninspiring and not particularly strong to deconstruct for comedy. What humour can you mine from the revelation someone hasn't seen Withnail & I until very recently, let's be honest.
I've heard a few episodes of the Radio 4 series in my time, and that sounded much sillier and comically distended than anything here -- recently, Sandi Toksvig admitted she's never eaten a Pot Noodle, and was promptly heard cooking and eating one in comic detail as if it were an epicurean delicacy. There was nothing to equal that amusement in two episodes of the TV version, despite the assumed a visual medium should bring. BBC4, THU, 10.30PM.
And that's not the only BBC Radio 4 comedy to arrive on television. GENIUS is essentially BBC2's replacement for QI, which was promoted to BBC1 for its current run. The ever-likeable Dave Gorman presents the series, which gives a platform for members of the Great British Public to share their "genius" ideas. Gorman and a weekly celebrity guest (Catherine Tate, for this opener) hear each pitch, debate its pro's and con's, before deciding if the idea has legs.
It's essentially a silly version of Dragons' Den, with harebrained ideas like: a jacket with a hood secreted in an arm-zipper, to enable a man to shelter a girl from rain by putting an arm over their shoulder; a "Democrabus" (where passengers decide the direction the vehicle takes by turning their own voting-wheel); a way for cab drivers to stop passengers running away without paying (insist on taking their shoes as a deposit when they board); and a man who thinks he could win the 100 meters by wearing 100m high shoes and simply falling forward. The comedy is reliant on the idea being pitched and Gorman's ability to comically evolve and test the brainwave, so it's a little hit-and-miss, but generally this showed promise. And the would-be inventors were often funnier than Gorman and Tate combined, which was a surprise. BBC2, FRI, 10PM.
.....
If you enjoyed TV Week, why not head over to Dan's Media Digest for more entertainment-related news, reviews and musings?
The target this week was "celebrity fiction", with particular indignation reserved for the retarded writing of Dan Brown (author of "The Da Vinci Code"), the general inanity of Chris Moyles' best-selling "The Difficult Second Book", and So Solid Crew rapper Asher D's photo-laden autobiography where he blithely compares himself to Jesus.
Many of his observations were astute and very funny (noticing that Moyles described his own work as a "toilet book", but a cover quote from Davina McCall described it as "butt-clenchingly honest"), but a few were too rambling, or lacked a decent pay-off. Lee has a tendency to stretch certain jokes past breaking point -- best exemplified by his describing of "the rap singers" like a middle-aged fart, which overran by minutes.
I'm also certain that Lee's brand of withering sarcasm will annoy plenty of people with a cheerier outlook on life, despite the fact it's very tongue-in-cheek. After all, if you overanalyze anything you can find comical discrepancies and amusingly hypocritical or egotistical sentiments. But you cant deny there were some very funny observations and tirades about literature here: on being asked if he's read the latest Harry Potter ("no, but I have read the complete works of visionary poet William Blake, so fuck off!"), or his belief that buying Jeremy Clarkson books on Amazon takes thousands of man-hours to rectify, as the website starts recommending you buy "Mein Kampf". BBC2, MON, 10PM.
BBC Radio 4 comedy I'VE NEVER SEEN STAR WARS transferred to television recently, presented by Dominic Brigstocke -- a stand-up comedian who resembles a geography teacher, and who's apparently determined to find fame by appearing on every British satirical show in existence.INSSW is a variant of Room 101, where a weekly celebrity guest must talk amusingly about a certain topic. In the aforementioned series, it was pet hates; in this show it's things they've never experienced, but wish they had. Of course, a proviso is that each guest gets to plug the gaps in their life-experience beforehand, then relate everything to Brigstocke. The first guest was Clive Anderson who, amongst other things, revealed he'd never played the National Lottery, watched Withnail & I, sat down and read "Men Are From Mars, Woman Are From Venus", or taken Judo lessons. The second edition featured Mastemind's John Humphrys harrumphing over Chris Moyles' "pub talk" on his breakfast show and The Da Vinci Code.
It's a show that clearly relies on its guests and their choices to amuse. I don't hate Anderson, but it's difficult to remember why he was a fairly big star back in the '90s, despite the fact his enduring legacy is being bumbling while hosting Whose Line Is It Anyway. His wit has long since been exposed as relying solely on daft word-play, too. His choices here were uninspiring and not particularly strong to deconstruct for comedy. What humour can you mine from the revelation someone hasn't seen Withnail & I until very recently, let's be honest.
I've heard a few episodes of the Radio 4 series in my time, and that sounded much sillier and comically distended than anything here -- recently, Sandi Toksvig admitted she's never eaten a Pot Noodle, and was promptly heard cooking and eating one in comic detail as if it were an epicurean delicacy. There was nothing to equal that amusement in two episodes of the TV version, despite the assumed a visual medium should bring. BBC4, THU, 10.30PM.
And that's not the only BBC Radio 4 comedy to arrive on television. GENIUS is essentially BBC2's replacement for QI, which was promoted to BBC1 for its current run. The ever-likeable Dave Gorman presents the series, which gives a platform for members of the Great British Public to share their "genius" ideas. Gorman and a weekly celebrity guest (Catherine Tate, for this opener) hear each pitch, debate its pro's and con's, before deciding if the idea has legs.It's essentially a silly version of Dragons' Den, with harebrained ideas like: a jacket with a hood secreted in an arm-zipper, to enable a man to shelter a girl from rain by putting an arm over their shoulder; a "Democrabus" (where passengers decide the direction the vehicle takes by turning their own voting-wheel); a way for cab drivers to stop passengers running away without paying (insist on taking their shoes as a deposit when they board); and a man who thinks he could win the 100 meters by wearing 100m high shoes and simply falling forward. The comedy is reliant on the idea being pitched and Gorman's ability to comically evolve and test the brainwave, so it's a little hit-and-miss, but generally this showed promise. And the would-be inventors were often funnier than Gorman and Tate combined, which was a surprise. BBC2, FRI, 10PM.
.....
If you enjoyed TV Week, why not head over to Dan's Media Digest for more entertainment-related news, reviews and musings?
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