Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle - BBC2 10pm from 16th March
- Thread starter Onket
- Start date
8den
No I'm pretty sure that was 8ball...
No it's more the "DELL BOY FALLING OVER IN THE WINE BAR, AND THEN TRIGGER TURNS AROUND AND GIVES A FUNNY LOOK", bits.
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
Yes, I thought this week's was good. Maybe the best one.
The sketches are awful though. Yes -- cringeworthy.
FabricLiveBaby!
Live Baby Fabric!
Indeed.
Re living up the property develpers arse:
While it wasn't that laugh out loud funny funny, it did ammuse me becuase it's the kind of thing property developers have been doing for years. Sending young familes to live in shoddily put together tiny shitholes for an extortionate price.
So I don't think he was too far off the mark.
I actually liked the parrallels.
the other sketchy bits were shite.
Thought last night's was a tad lame.
Only just picked up again on this thread today, after osting following last week's (which I thought a lot better)
Taken a bit aback by these comments about last week's :
I honestly don't get what was patronising or sneering about last week's
, I seriously don't.
IMO he was having a thoroughly well justified pisstake of people who are obsessed with 'PC gone mad', what's exclusively 'pleb' about that?
There's plenty of people whose gears get ground by people droning on about 'political correctness', and who like me who see such whingeing as pretty clear evidence of being being pretty stupid, and gullible to Maily Teklegraphish/Clarksonish/Littlejohnish media myths and lies ....
If there's anyone asking to have the piss taken out of them something rotten**, with few holds barred, it's 'PC' obsessives, I'd say. Stupidity of that kind knows no class boundaries, Sun or Telegragh reader, 'pleb' or snooty Tory, all sorts believe in that rubbish.
**Possible to argue about how well/effectively he did it, call my tastes in humour simple but I liked it last week and thought his barbs richly deserved.
Only just picked up again on this thread today, after osting following last week's (which I thought a lot better)
Taken a bit aback by these comments about last week's :
NVP said:
I honestly don't get what was patronising or sneering about last week's
, I seriously don't.IMO he was having a thoroughly well justified pisstake of people who are obsessed with 'PC gone mad', what's exclusively 'pleb' about that?
There's plenty of people whose gears get ground by people droning on about 'political correctness', and who like me who see such whingeing as pretty clear evidence of being being pretty stupid, and gullible to Maily Teklegraphish/Clarksonish/Littlejohnish media myths and lies ....
If there's anyone asking to have the piss taken out of them something rotten**, with few holds barred, it's 'PC' obsessives, I'd say. Stupidity of that kind knows no class boundaries, Sun or Telegragh reader, 'pleb' or snooty Tory, all sorts believe in that rubbish.
**Possible to argue about how well/effectively he did it, call my tastes in humour simple but I liked it last week and thought his barbs richly deserved.
And the jokes, you know the jokes.
The jokes, with their punchlines.
The jokes, with their punchline, being all funny.
The jokes. The jokes.
With their punchlines.
The jokes with their punchlines. Taking forever.
The jokes. Being all funny.
The jokes with their punchlines. Taking forever.
The jokes...
They're starting to grate....
These jokes. Being all funny.
With their punchlines. Taking forever...
The jokes, with their punchlines.
The jokes, with their punchline, being all funny.
The jokes. The jokes.
With their punchlines.
The jokes with their punchlines. Taking forever.
The jokes. Being all funny.
The jokes with their punchlines. Taking forever.
The jokes...
They're starting to grate....
These jokes. Being all funny.
With their punchlines. Taking forever...
Yes, that trait was particularly long drawn out and grating and annoying last night IMO. Disappointing after what I rated as an improvment last week.
oh i really liked that last night. the way he started off with getting nostalgic about woolies - which everyone could relate too - and then going on to MFI (going down there with your pocket money on a saturday morning) and then zavvi. it was ace
electrogirl
dignity is overrated
oh i really liked that last night. the way he started off with getting nostalgic about woolies - which everyone could relate too - and then going on to MFI (going down there with your pocket money on a saturday morning) and then zavvi. it was ace
Yeah I liked that bit. 'those old flatpacks you got in the 70s'
I liked this week more than the others tbh. I still think it doesn't work.
AND STOP THE SKETCHES.
It's like they thought the idea of a full half an hour of standup would be too much so they've just made lamo sketches for the sake of it.
I'd prefer a full half an hour of standup tbf.
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
However, it didn't really grate for me. It sort of was done in a knowing way, almost part of the device so you know that as soon as he starts going on about Zavvi, you know he's going to start going on about his pocket money, just like he did about Woolworths. So, it's funny before he says it. But then it's still funny when he says it.
But then again I found Mark and Lard funny on t'radio, and they did the same show every day for years...
The repetition is a deliberate rhetorical technique though. It exists to create an actual physical manifestation of the frustration that the speaker feels from the topic he is talking about. It pulls the audience through the door of comfortable observation and into the pit of excrutiation that the orator is talking about.
Yes, it doesn't necessarily make you laugh. But Stewart Lee moved on years ago from that kind of humour. That's why I agree and continue to agree that he's very uncommercial. Frankly, to appreciate what he is doing, you have to analyse the purpose of it and very few people expect or want to do that -- especially for comedy, of all things. If you don't like it, I don't blame you.
For me, though, he does something that nobody else does. He brings the skill of the expert speechwriter or novelist or pamphleteer to comedy. He's unique and I love him. I could watch him all day. I'm not saying that he makes me LOLZ. But it's still comedy; the blackest, most ironic of comedy. And it uplifts me to hear it. If you don't like it, don't watch it. But don't watch it and then tell those of us that like it that we shouldn't like it because, frankly, you're wrong.
Yes, it doesn't necessarily make you laugh. But Stewart Lee moved on years ago from that kind of humour. That's why I agree and continue to agree that he's very uncommercial. Frankly, to appreciate what he is doing, you have to analyse the purpose of it and very few people expect or want to do that -- especially for comedy, of all things. If you don't like it, I don't blame you.
For me, though, he does something that nobody else does. He brings the skill of the expert speechwriter or novelist or pamphleteer to comedy. He's unique and I love him. I could watch him all day. I'm not saying that he makes me LOLZ. But it's still comedy; the blackest, most ironic of comedy. And it uplifts me to hear it. If you don't like it, don't watch it. But don't watch it and then tell those of us that like it that we shouldn't like it because, frankly, you're wrong.
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
Heh. That's probably part of what I was trying to say as well...
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
Maybe something to do with budgets, i.e. his shows wouldn't be expensive enough without them
I think the problem is that somebody at the BBC really thought that they should get Stewart Lee -- he is critically raved about, has a massive cult following, has co-written one of the most successful and controversial stage hits of recent times and people remember him fondly from a former incarnation. But when it came to it, they didn't know what to do with him, because these days his act consists of a single, continuous, savagely ironic story that lasts about an hour. They were worried that the mass audience of today, used to sketch show formats, wouldn't be able to cope with a single, continuous, savagely ironic story that even lasts half an hour. So they told him that he had to break it up with sketches.Maybe something to do with budgets, i.e. his shows wouldn't be expensive enough without them
It's just a theory.
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
I thought last night's was the best so far, but that isn't saying much. I'm still finding parts of it painful and cringeworthy.
I have to say I didn't laugh once last night.
maomao
普費斯
What you mean the kind of humour that's actually funny?
If that's how you are defining "funny" then yes.
If, however, you are willing to encompass a blacker definition of humour that includes countless novels throughout history, then no.
As I said, if you don't like it, simply return to the mountains of zany, gag-ridden LOLZ that exist elsewhere in the media.
King Biscuit Time
Well-Known Member
I didn't really laugh last night - but thats not to say for one second that I didn't really enjoy watching it.
I think he's a bit confined by the fact that as far as the BBC (and the vast majority of the public) are concerned, a bloke, standing on a stage with a microphone, saying stuff, some of which is funny = Stand Up Comedy.
There isn't a separate genre for the kind of thing SL (and a few others) are doing, it's not really a monologue, it's quite theatrical at times, it can be very funny, so it makes sense to lump it in with comedy. The only problem with that is it leaves SL (or whoever) wide open to the criticism that 'I didn't laugh once'.
I think he's a bit confined by the fact that as far as the BBC (and the vast majority of the public) are concerned, a bloke, standing on a stage with a microphone, saying stuff, some of which is funny = Stand Up Comedy.
There isn't a separate genre for the kind of thing SL (and a few others) are doing, it's not really a monologue, it's quite theatrical at times, it can be very funny, so it makes sense to lump it in with comedy. The only problem with that is it leaves SL (or whoever) wide open to the criticism that 'I didn't laugh once'.
Yes, this. This precisely.
FabricLiveBaby!
Live Baby Fabric!
even the title of the show suggest that it aint stuart lee wot's the funny one, but the situation that surrounds him. Therefore I don't laught at stuart, but the whole finacnial crisis in itself is pretty comedy....
Or am I looking too deep into this?
Or am I looking too deep into this?
maomao
普費斯
I don't think he has the delivery skill to carry that sort of humour off. Maybe he should stick to writing because it comes off as tedious and smug. I'm certainly not a zany lulz chaser and have given him a big slice of time to make me laugh. I think the first episode worked best because of the topic, his smugness allowed him to serve as a character in the debate between literature and popular books. It hasn't worked so well with other topics.
I disagree. What else can I say? It's subjective. You don't have to watch him though, and I'm sure that you won't. But what's the point telling those of us that DO think that he has the delivery skill to carry it off that we shouldn't like it either?
Voley
🐀
It doesn't surprise me that you like Lee and his overbearing smugness.
