“You’ll read in the Daily Mail or the Telegraph that I don’t go to the Brexit towns, that I don’t play outside north London,” says Stewart Lee, one of Britain’s most knowingly subversive comedy provocateurs.
“But I do, I go everywhere. And apart from Perth and Aberdeen, I sell out everywhere. Which is why I’m talking to you.”
Two shows in one
His laugh is infectious, a kind of uncontrollable wheeze at odds with his meticulously deadpan delivery onstage.
The reason we’re talking politics already is partly because he’s good at it and happy to, and also because the new show he’s touring calls for it. Buy a ticket if you’re in Perth this week, or happen to be in Aberdeen.
Actually, Snowflake/Tornado is two shows in one, each an hour long.
“The first hour, Tornado, is a shaggy dog story about a night in a theatre at a gig,” says Lee.
“The second half is Snowflake, it’s kind of an argument about the idea that cancel culture exists, and what comedians can and can’t say.”
Which is where it gets topical. The shows aren’t linked in any way (“I’m in both of them!” he points out), but they appear together simply because he wanted to do something different after writing either half-hour episodes of his TV show Comedy Vehicle or two-hour stage shows – so why not try something in between?
From browbeaten to chatty
“I thought I’d do two one-hours to see how the rhythm felt different,” he says. “It also means I can have fun being a slightly different character in both, with different levels of energy.
“Tornado is narrative-driven, so I have to hang on to the story, then Snowflake is much more discursive, so I can improvise more. In the first half I’m a browbeaten figure who’s disappointed about his status, and in the second half I was more interested in discussing ideas.”
Who is the real Stewart?
Which one is the real him? “They’re always versions of yourself,” he says.
“My son saw it and said it didn’t make sense doing them both, because the takes on myself were too different, but I think that’s interesting.
“Even when you go out as a stand-up in your own name, on some level you have to choose which bits of you you’re going to amp up, so it’s nice to do it two different ways in one night.”
The Snowflake bit
Let’s talk about Snowflake, and the omnipresent topic of cancel culture in comedy.
“I think Woke culture is a really good thing,” says Lee. “I think it’s time institutions were made accountable for their history.
“I think it’s time comedians thought more about the words they use and why they use them, and the possible social damage that they do.
“Obviously it can be overzealously interpreted, and I know there are terrible problems, particularly for academics when they’re trying to talk about and teach certain things.
“But it’s better than what we had before – which was the 1970s, wasn’t it?”
He’s not done yet. “It’s utterly disingenuous of people like Ricky Gervais or Dave Chappelle to complain about being cancelled when they’re on $60 million contracts and are available on streaming networks all over the world.
“But you have to be careful, because even by talking about it you’re playing into the hands of the Conservatives, who are trying to stoke a culture war to distract from their failings.”
‘Ricky Gervais is a ****’
Gervais, it turns out, is something of a bete noir for Lee. He gives a long, considered and expletive-laden analysis of the Office’s star’s recent Netflix special, but his thoughts can be summarised in one quote:
“I think he’s a ****. He’s an absolute 100% total **** and he should **** off. And you can put that in the paper with asterisks.”
Yet don’t try to tell him Gervais’s special wasn’t funny. “The thing is, it’s getting laughs from an audience of thousands of people, it’s doing its job.
“With comedy, there’s not much point as a critic to talk about whether it’s funny or not, because everything’s funny to someone.
“What you can talk about is, is it original, is it innovative, does it have any sense of moral responsibility?
What is funny?
“Otherwise, it’s a bit like trying to define beauty. I’m fully prepared to accept that to a lot of people I’m not funny in the least, to the point where they want to tear their hair out in rage and boredom.
“And yet the person next to them will be crying with laughter. It’s like people who say something’s not music – if it’s organised sound, then on some level it is.”
- Stewart Lee’s Snowflake/Tornado is at Perth Theatre on Monday and Tuesday June 20-21. www.horsecross.co.uk
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