This piece originally appeared in The Demon newspaper Issue 125.
Stewart Lee loves Leicester. He says
that, as a child, he ‘used to look at the picture of the fattest man who ever
lived, Daniel Lambert, who was from Leicester, in the Guinness Book of Records
and dream of Leicester.’ He tells me that, in the '90s, he was fond of the
German Psychedelic Progressive rock record shop ‘Ultima Thule’ which was near
the station. I can’t contain my jealousy for those studying at DMU at the time
as Lee says he ‘always seemed to be doing gigs at the Poly and then eating
lovely curries after.’ Particular praise goes to the
night porter in the bar at the Mercure Hotel, Lee looks forward to ‘his deadpan
sense of humour’ every time he stays there.
He also thinks that Leicester is ‘an
example of multiculturalism working, on the whole, that disproves a lot of the
stuff we hear at the moment, though I appreciate a lot of effort goes in to
making this work.’
Most importantly though, in 2004 he met
fellow comedian Bridget Christie at a party above an Indian restaurant while
they were both appearing at the comedy festival. He is now married to Bridget and they have two children. Lee says that, as a
result of having stand-up comedians for parents, their children ‘meet all kinds
of people when we do Edinburgh and in our lives
generally because the spread of people that do comedy is so vast - all races,
religions, social classes etc - which has already had a really good effect on
them I think.’
This, in my opinion, must have been
very different to how Lee grew up. This is based on the fact
that he grew up in Solihull, the same place that I grew up. It’s very
different from the vibrant multicultural society of Leicester. When I tell Lee
that Solihull now has its own comedy festival called ‘Lolihull’
it becomes clear that he will never perform at it. I get the feeling that he’s
been constantly eluding me for years as he tells me that, not only did he
perform at my university many times in the ‘90s, but in 2005, he performed in a
pub in Knowle. If only eleven year old me had taken
the ten minute walk from my house to the highstreet
of Knowle, I could have been turned away from the pub for being eleven. Lee’s vowed never to return after ‘all the sisters of people
I used to vaguely know turned up to gawp at me and prove that I was wrong to
have left small town England for London. Then some weirdo who was now a born again Christian tried to convert me afterwards. It was
awful.’
Lee isn’t a stranger to criticism,
The Daily Telegraph say that ‘Stewart Lee is not funny and has nothing
interesting to say.’ The Sun says that he’s ‘the worst comedian in Britain. As
funny as Bubonic Plague. The Birmingham
Sunday Mercury says that ‘"His whole tone is one of complete, smug
condescension."
Lee’ comedy isn’t for everyone, and
that’s just the way he seems to like it. I haven’t been trawling through reams
of reviews to find these quotes. I’ve simply lazily copy
and pasted these quotes from Lee’s website, the covers of his DVDs, the back of
his books, and his tour posters. He prints the above criticisms in an attempt to dissuade people who wouldn’t enjoy his work
from watching, reading or attending it. Engaging with the criticism in such an
unabashed manner suggests that he is immune to their insults. He says that the
criticism does strengthen you, but agrees that it can
make you unhappy and bitter.
When I asked him about the next series
of Alternative Comedy Experience, the
stand-up TV show he created and curated, I was told that there wouldn’t be one
because Comedy Central don’t want one. ‘It got good figures but with the wrong
age group’ Lee says. Perhaps one of the executives at Comedy Central will soon
find themselves on one of Lee’s posters, as they were quoted in the Guardian as
saying that "Cynical clever comedy like Stewart Lee is all very well but
we don't find it being shared on line by our target
demographic." Lee calls this ‘a real shame. As it was the only worthwhile
piece of original programming on the channel.’
On the
subject of criticism, he says that “What is annoying is to be criticised for things you haven't
done or said, or to be criticised by people making wrong assumptions about why
or how you have done the things you have done, or to be criticised by people
who don't know anything about what you do, based on their own prejudices.”
Unfortunately this is exactly what happened to Lee
when he visited Leicester back in 2005.There was a particularly strong opposition t Jerry Springer The Opera, co-ordinated by an ‘especially unpleasant Tory councillor. Lee directed and co-wrote the script
for the musical about the eponymous talk show host which features depictions of
Jesus, God and Satan amongst other biblical characters. As Lee documents in his
book How I Escaped My Certain Fate and
in his 2005 stand-up show 90’s Comedian,
there was a vicious campaign to get the show banned. Christian pressure group
‘Christian Voice’ rallied the forces of ignorance to protest
against the show, which won four Laurence Olivier Awards, claiming it
was blasphemous. Lee says that ‘the bishop of Leicester invited me to a debate
in the Cathedral which he assured me would be reasonable and I fell for it.’ Lee
debated with Resham Singh Sandhu, who has since served a stint as ‘High
Sherriff of Leicester’ which is actually a thing. A
primarily ceremonial, archaic thing which involves wearing silly clothes, but a
thing none the less.
Lee says that the
former High Sherriff ‘didn't seem to think not knowing anything about the
subject in hand was any reason not to have a violent opinion about it’ and
that, in the spirit of open minded debate, the
Sherriff used his opening remarks to pray that the show would be banned. Lee
relives this moment again and again in his mind, realising that this was the
point he should have walked out and left them to thrash it out amongst
themselves.
‘They say you only regret the things
you didn't do, and not walking out at that point will haunt me for the rest of
my life. In a slurry of unpleasant experiences associated with trying to tour
the show, Leicester was probably the point at which my patience ran out and my
spirit was finally broken, so I always associate that with Leicester too sadly.’
Lee’s bittersweet feelings towards Leicester are
perfectly summed up by the 2005 Valentines’ edition of the Leicester Mercury.
Lee and his wife were stopped in the street by the local
paper and asked if they had romantic memories of Leicester. Lee says that ‘In
the next day's Leicester Mercury page 5 was a picture of us in a heart shaped
border captioned 'romance in Leicester', and page 3 was a picture of me arguing
with Resham Singh Sandhu, captioned “face of hatred” or something like that.’
Understandably, Lee can’t see himself
venturing into the world of musical theatre again anytime soon. He says that
his Jerry Springer collaborator
Richard Thomas has an idea he’d like the two to work on, and Harry Hill’s
X-Factor musical was a reminder how great big shows can be, but the thought of the stress of it is off putting. ‘I
never want to do anything so well known that I have to meet people like Resham
Singh Sandu again, and if you're spending money to make a big show sadly you
are obliged to promote it and raise its profile.’
Despite having many other talents, he mainly seems interested in continuing with stand-up. In my continued efforts to badger someone into opening a new comedy club in Leicester, I asked if he’d be interested in opening a comedy venue with the same ethos as Alternative Comedy Experience. Lee says that it would be too much effort and that he doesn’t know how people do it. ‘I might do it when I leave London when I am old, and book all my mates, and force them to bring me newspapers from the big city.’
Lee wrote for On the Hour with comedy giants such as Steve Coogan, Armando Ianucci and Chris Morris, and has continued to work with
them on other projects. He’s no longer interested in experimenting with film as
they all have with Alpha Papa, In the
Loop and Four Lions. He tells me
that he spent 1997 – 2005 almost getting a script made: ‘I had Peter Fonda, Daryll Hannah, Alan Rickman all lined up but it kept falling apart around changing Hollywood
fashions. I went backwards and forwards to New York and LA losing money. Never
again.’
Neither would he entertain the idea of
being given his own panel show, saying that he’d just use the time to write
more stand-up ‘which would pay more than a panel show, and wouldn't mean I was
seen by 4 million people, who would then hassle me in the street and try and
secretly take pictures of me with my kids on their camera phones.’
Lee has previously talked about success and
critical acclaim making it harder to write. I asked him if it was getting any
easier, he said that ‘It gets harder. My brain
is slowing. My knees hurt.’ Despite
this, he still hopes to be performing when he reaches the age of 75. In fact,
he’s looking forward to it ‘It's a reason to live. It will be hilarious to be
an old grumpy man’ and if he makes it to 90 then he might even reunite with
former double act partner Richard Herring. I hope that the 65
year old me finally catches up with Lee and is there to see it. But what
will he talk about? What will the issues of the future be? ‘I expect I'll be
talking about the same things as I am now. Farts and UKIP.’
You can see
Stewart Lee discussing both farts and UKIP in A Room With A Stew on the 12th
of February at De Montfort Hall.