If you watch nothing else this week, make time for Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, on BBC2 at 10pm on Monday, the first of a new series.
It's been quite heavily written up in the papers over the past few days, with several of the writers wondering, as I have for years, why Lee has been off our screens for so long, but good on the BBC for seeing sense at last. I'd guess that the long absence has something to do with Lee's style - a distinct lack of actual gags, and a reliance instead on superb structure, timing and repetition - as much as his often controversial subject matter. But anyway, make the most of it.
Funnily enough, when I got back the other night, I went to see Lee's erstwhile comedy partner, Richard Herring, on his new tour, The Headmaster's Son. He's probably a more conventional comedian than Lee, but equally unafraid to tackle difficult subjects, and equally willing to trust his audience's intelligence. Like his last show (Oh F*ck I'm 40!), this one actually manages to be quite poignant in parts, but most of all, it's very funny.
Showing posts with label Comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comedy. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Round and about
I’ve been a bit lazy about posting lately, so here are some edited highlights of the last week or so.
Richard Herring, at the Y Theatre in Leicester on Saturday, was terrific. Unfortunately, the place was only about half-full, but it didn’t deter him from doing a long set. On the surface, his on-stage persona and act come across as much less intellectual than his erstwhile comedy partner, Stewart Lee, and indeed he cheerfully describes his job as “being puerile and offensive on stage”. In fact, though, he ploughs a very similar furrow to Lee, with this particular show focusing on the fact that he’s reached 40 and feels that he’s wasted his life, not a world away from the territory Lee visited in his 41st Best Stand-up Ever show. Like Lee, too, his comedy is predominantly about (or at least, hinges on) the use and abuse of language – pedantry has rarely been so entertaining.
The rest of the weekend was a bit of a washout, but that did at least mean that I had plenty of time to do some work on a sequence of poems I’ve been writing about a hidden corner of 17th century history. The plan is, eventually, for Tom Bailey to do some photographs to go with them, and then…well, we haven’t got much past that point yet.
Yesterday I was out testing binoculars at Rutland Water. It’s always the way of such days that you don’t actually do much bird-watching, because you’re so busy worrying about stuff like depth of field and eye relief, but it was good to see a few flocks of Sand Martins arriving, plus good views of Sparrowhawk and Buzzard. On the way home, I called in at Swithland Reservoir for a quick look. I’d begun to get worried about the Peregrines, but one sped over the woods and landed on their favourite tree just as I was leaving, and the long-staying drake Smew was well worth seeing again. No sign of the Great White Egret resurfacing, though. I saw it for five minutes at Watermead Park on Thursday, but it hasn’t been refound since.
Richard Herring, at the Y Theatre in Leicester on Saturday, was terrific. Unfortunately, the place was only about half-full, but it didn’t deter him from doing a long set. On the surface, his on-stage persona and act come across as much less intellectual than his erstwhile comedy partner, Stewart Lee, and indeed he cheerfully describes his job as “being puerile and offensive on stage”. In fact, though, he ploughs a very similar furrow to Lee, with this particular show focusing on the fact that he’s reached 40 and feels that he’s wasted his life, not a world away from the territory Lee visited in his 41st Best Stand-up Ever show. Like Lee, too, his comedy is predominantly about (or at least, hinges on) the use and abuse of language – pedantry has rarely been so entertaining.
The rest of the weekend was a bit of a washout, but that did at least mean that I had plenty of time to do some work on a sequence of poems I’ve been writing about a hidden corner of 17th century history. The plan is, eventually, for Tom Bailey to do some photographs to go with them, and then…well, we haven’t got much past that point yet.
Yesterday I was out testing binoculars at Rutland Water. It’s always the way of such days that you don’t actually do much bird-watching, because you’re so busy worrying about stuff like depth of field and eye relief, but it was good to see a few flocks of Sand Martins arriving, plus good views of Sparrowhawk and Buzzard. On the way home, I called in at Swithland Reservoir for a quick look. I’d begun to get worried about the Peregrines, but one sped over the woods and landed on their favourite tree just as I was leaving, and the long-staying drake Smew was well worth seeing again. No sign of the Great White Egret resurfacing, though. I saw it for five minutes at Watermead Park on Thursday, but it hasn’t been refound since.
Friday, 15 February 2008
The 41st Best Stand-up Ever
I went along to the Y Theatre in Leicester last night with some friends, to see Stewart Lee, appearing as part of the 15th Leicester Comedy Festival. He was performing the show (The 41st Best Stand-up Ever) that he took to last year's Edinburgh Festival, and he was as good as ever.
Quite why he's been absent from our TV screens (bar the very occasional, very brief, appearance) for so long remains a mystery, because he puts most British stand-ups in the shade. As I've said before, it's not so much the material, however thought-provoking and intelligent it is. It's all in the delivery. I suppose it all comes under the heading of 'comedy timing', but Lee uses silence and repetition to wonderful effect.
Funnily enough, his old comedy partner Richard Herring is at the Y in a month's time, so I'll be going along to that too, to see what he's been up to in the years since Fist Of Fun and TMWRNJ.
Quite why he's been absent from our TV screens (bar the very occasional, very brief, appearance) for so long remains a mystery, because he puts most British stand-ups in the shade. As I've said before, it's not so much the material, however thought-provoking and intelligent it is. It's all in the delivery. I suppose it all comes under the heading of 'comedy timing', but Lee uses silence and repetition to wonderful effect.
Funnily enough, his old comedy partner Richard Herring is at the Y in a month's time, so I'll be going along to that too, to see what he's been up to in the years since Fist Of Fun and TMWRNJ.
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
Catching up
On Sunday night, I went to the Phoenix in Leicester to see the closing night of the Leicester Comedy Festival. There were five unknown comics (well, unknown by me at least – the best were compere John Richardson and deadpan Yorkshireman Alun Cochrane), and headliner Stewart Lee, whose set was sadly shorter than usual, but as good as always. It’s his style, as much as the actual material, that makes him so entertaining, especially as he uses his peculiarly slow delivery to, at times, deconstruct the whole process of comedy. That, thankfully, sounds a lot duller than it actually is – in practice, the laughs still come thick and fast, but you’re also led to think about exactly what you’re laughing at.
I got back just in time to see the start of The South Bank Bank Show, which was looking at WH Auden, and ended up recording it and watching it on Monday. I have to confess that I’ve read far less by and about Auden than I should have done, and so it was hard to form an opinion on a lot of what was mentioned, including his decision to leave Britain for the USA just as World War Two was looming.
I did, though, find myself admiring his decision to expunge certain fairly early poems from his canon because he decided, years later, that they were just not honest, and that he had overdone the rhetoric for poetic effect. I don’t think that’s in any way arguing that poetry has to be straightforwardly emotional, or literal, just that the kernel of emotion at the heart of each piece has to be ‘true’. It was also a reminder of that old thing about poems never being really finished – if someone of Auden’s stature can keep having second thoughts, I don’t feel so bad about my own constant dithering.
I would have got round to posting this yesterday, but spent the day testing telescopes for work at Rutland Water, which was fun but doesn’t half leave you cross-eyed! And then on the way home, I went in to give blood, and found myself volunteered to go on the machine that separates your blood products there and then, allowing you to give twice as much. I decided typing counted as the strenuous exercise they warned me off.
The bird lists are steadily growing. The overall list is on 111, courtesy of four Smew (two male and two female) yesterday, plus Lesser Redpoll, Siskin and Little Owl at the weekend. The patch list is creeping up towards the century mark, with those last three all counting towards it.
I got the Little Owl near Sawley Marina, close to the M1. Despite the road, it’s a very quiet spot really, and has been attracting a lot of Short-eared Owls lately, so I went to have a look. It’s certainly SEO heaven, habitat-wise, but none showed. Still, the Little Owl was consolation and a reminder that part of the fun of birding is that in looking for one thing, you find another. The Derbyshire birding website says the SEOs are still there though, along with patch rarities such as Ringed Plover and Oystercatcher, so I’ll have another look this weekend.
I got back just in time to see the start of The South Bank Bank Show, which was looking at WH Auden, and ended up recording it and watching it on Monday. I have to confess that I’ve read far less by and about Auden than I should have done, and so it was hard to form an opinion on a lot of what was mentioned, including his decision to leave Britain for the USA just as World War Two was looming.
I did, though, find myself admiring his decision to expunge certain fairly early poems from his canon because he decided, years later, that they were just not honest, and that he had overdone the rhetoric for poetic effect. I don’t think that’s in any way arguing that poetry has to be straightforwardly emotional, or literal, just that the kernel of emotion at the heart of each piece has to be ‘true’. It was also a reminder of that old thing about poems never being really finished – if someone of Auden’s stature can keep having second thoughts, I don’t feel so bad about my own constant dithering.
I would have got round to posting this yesterday, but spent the day testing telescopes for work at Rutland Water, which was fun but doesn’t half leave you cross-eyed! And then on the way home, I went in to give blood, and found myself volunteered to go on the machine that separates your blood products there and then, allowing you to give twice as much. I decided typing counted as the strenuous exercise they warned me off.
The bird lists are steadily growing. The overall list is on 111, courtesy of four Smew (two male and two female) yesterday, plus Lesser Redpoll, Siskin and Little Owl at the weekend. The patch list is creeping up towards the century mark, with those last three all counting towards it.
I got the Little Owl near Sawley Marina, close to the M1. Despite the road, it’s a very quiet spot really, and has been attracting a lot of Short-eared Owls lately, so I went to have a look. It’s certainly SEO heaven, habitat-wise, but none showed. Still, the Little Owl was consolation and a reminder that part of the fun of birding is that in looking for one thing, you find another. The Derbyshire birding website says the SEOs are still there though, along with patch rarities such as Ringed Plover and Oystercatcher, so I’ll have another look this weekend.
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