On hearing that Stewart Lee’s latest show Carpet Remnant World was to be staged in the larger Lyric Theatre (the 1730 seater) at the Lowry you couldn’t help but wonder how this was going to go down with a comedian who usually eschews the trappings of success.
Since he started performing stand up again in 2004 after a few years’ break, Lee has been entertaining his select group of followers; mostly comedy connoisseurs bored with the simplistic reminisces of the observational stand up. Performing in arts centres around the country, he was able to rail at not having had a telly deal since the nineties when he was working with his comedic partner Richard Herring. But then the BBC spoilt it, finally recognising his sheer brilliance and innovation and awarded him with his own ‘Comedy Vehicle’ on BBC2.
And lo, after the success of the TV shows comes the inevitable move from those smaller venues to bigger spaces. But Lee employs both aspects of his re-discovered success to his advantage. The TV exposure and the larger room means, no doubt, that there are some in the room who are just dipping their toes in – friends of fans and people that have seen him on TV. This fact serves to fuel his self deprecating, obstructive persona; pausing after a clever punchline – usually requiring the audience to fill in part of it themselves – to split the room into those he perceives got the joke (mainly the stalls) and those that didn’t (the balcony).
The premise for his latest show is that Lee has nothing comedically to give any more. Once a young hipster with his finger on the political and cultural pulse, now he’s a forty something father who spends most of his time travelling about the country on motorways. He grumbles about comedians winning awards with sad shows about their Dads dying, sardonically attempts to run energetically about on the stage in parody of one of those younger comics who are ostensibly all called Russell and tries some Peter Kay-esque observations.
The rolls of carpets that create the backdrop are apparently what’s left of a vague idea of a show he’d had last year then didn’t bother to develop, or did he? Lee constantly teases that he has no material at all, but then again he might have… That bit was planned… or was it? Lee de-constructs the process of writing comedy and proceeds to break every rule he can find. Those who have already seen Lee place a toy giraffe on his head and leave it there far too long for comedic effect in a previous show will know what he’s up to when claims not to have a show at all. Over the years, and indeed this show, he’s de-constructed his own jokes sufficiently to kill them, appears unafraid of the prolonged silence that is death to any other comedian and the rule of three – where the third item on a list of observations is the funny one – becomes the rule of sixteen. Suddenly it’s funny because we know what he’s up to and the comedic rules he is deliberately flouting. And somehow, even if you don’t recognise those rules of comedy, it’s funny anyway.
The analysis frequently trips into the realms of the absurd with a series of visits to retail park shops whose names have been taken far too literally by their members of staff. Elsewhere a political anti-Thatcher rant gets hilariously confused with the Scooby Doo films he has been watching with his young son.
The closest Lee courts convention is in his complaint that he never gets recognised in public as himself but rather other famous people such as Tanita Tikaram having let herself go. It’s as straight as his material’s likely to get. And long may that continue.
This review was first published in Chimp magazine.
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