Stewart Lee: Content Provider

This programme contains very strong language and adult humour.

FLOORBOARDS CREAK

Well, Stewart, hello.

I think I'd like to start off by asking...

..how you see yourself at this late juncture of your career?

I mean, what is it that you exactly think you're doing?

I don't know,

and it's not something that I feel is good enough to be broadcast.

I want to stop this now,

but there's always just enough of an inducement to carry on

and there doesn't seem to be any way of bringing it to a close.

The series was cancelled.

I was told by BBC Two Comedy that they didn't want any more.

Then another bloke sort of intervened and said,

"Oh, maybe you should..." MUSIC DROWNS HIM OUT

People of Southend, Essex,

it's time now to endure the stand-up comedy of the comedian, Stewart Lee!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

MUSIC STOPS

Thank you for coming.

Right. Let's crack on and tell you what's happening.

So, there's a number of problems with this show.

The main one, right, is that I, OK...

I started writing this about 18 months ago, OK?

And the idea was it was going to be two hours on the notion

of the individual in a digitised free-market economy.

OK? And I was going to base it all around this painting,

which is Caspar David Friedrich's 1818 German romantic masterpiece

Wanderer Above A Sea Of Fog.

Now, hopefully you've all had the e-mails,

and you've done the reading you'll need to have done.

LAUGHTER

Then I did about a month's work on that and then the Brexit vote

happened, right, and there seemed to an assumption everywhere

that I should have written some jokes about Brexit.

Now, I haven't written any jokes about Brexit,

cos I was trying to write a show that I could keep on the road

for 18 months and as I didn't know how Brexit was going to pan out,

I didn't write any jokes about it in case I couldn't use them in the show

and monetise the work I've done, right?

So, I haven't written any jokes about Brexit,

cos I didn't see the point of committing to a course of action

for which there's no logical or financial justification.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

That's right, clap the things you agree with!

LAUGHTER

Clap, clap, clap! Agree, agree, agree!

"Did you see Stewart Lee in Southend?"

"Yeah." "Was it funny?"

"No, but I agreed the fuck out of it."

LAUGHTER

"It's almost as if it were targeted at my exact social demographic,

"in a cynical attempt to maintain a future-proof audience for long-term

"mortgage repayment purposes."

Can it be, Southend, that the future of Britain, Europe, Southend,

the world, has been altered forever as a result, it would appear,

of the ongoing competitive rivalry of a small group of competitive

posh men, right? It looks like that's what's happened.

When he was a student,

David Cameron put his penis into a dead pig's face, didn't he?

LAUGHTER

And then to outdo him,

to do something even more bizarre and obscene,

Michael Gove put his penis into a Daily Mail journalist.

LAUGHTER

Imagine doing that!

Euuurgh!

Euuuuuurgh!

EUGH!

Caustic wit, that, like Toby Young.

You like it? LAUGHTER

And then to outdo him,

to do something even more sick-making and wrong,

Boris Johnson put himself into the role of Foreign Secretary.

LAUGHTER

And if you think it's funny that Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary,

and it is, arguably,

I guarantee you he's going to be Prime Minister at some point.

Theresa May has been put in place, it's now clear,

by the steering committee as a sort of palate cleanser.

Isn't she? Kind of a... LAUGHTER

..a nasty-tasting mouthwash that you swill around your gums

before being forced to eat actual human shit.

LAUGHTER

A lot of casualties, weren't there, in the Brexit shake-up?

A lot of people, you know, Michael Gove and Sarah Vine,

they sort of disappeared initially but they're back now, aren't they?

Michael Gove and Sarah Vine.

And they're currently trying to reinvent themselves as the

amusing celebrity political couple for young millennials so jaded

they no longer find Neil and Christine Hamilton

quite sickening enough.

LAUGHTER

Michael Gove and Sarah Vine are the Neil and Christine Hamilton

for the Two Girls One Cup generation.

LAUGHTER AND GROANING

HE SNORTS

Yeah, well... That's a shame.

So... LAUGHTER

OK, here's what's happened, right?

This is two nights in Southend and, right, I am aware

Southend's not really my target sort of town,

but this was at a nice Victorian theatre, the theatre...

The theatre was available.

And... LAUGHTER

Well, it's just that's normally the first big laugh of the night,

that...

..joke there. With the... LAUGHTER

But we've got a lot of people here.

You've got the sort of target audience here,

sort of comedy fans and people that know about,

about the politics and stuff.

And then it's...

I've put on too many dates in Southend, basically,

there's no... LAUGHTER

Look at these people, this isn't my crowd, is it?

Look at that, Essex.

Essex filth.

People that have... LAUGHTER

Market traders on the run from London, aren't they?

LAUGHTER

Lost their nerve and come to live in the white supremacist theme park...

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Should have been a bigger laugh, that, honestly,

that Michael Gove joke, it's a... LAUGHTER

It's a good joke.

So, h... W...

Have people brought friends with them?

Cos that often makes it go worse, if people...

LAUGHTER

I know what's happened, people that used to come and see me

in the little cellar at the Pavilion like 30 years ago, you've gone,

"Oh, he'll never fill the Palace Theatre Southend for two nights.

"Let's help him out and we'll buy four tickets,

"and we'll bring Alan and Claire," and they're...

LAUGHTER

They're sitting next to you, your mates, nudging you and going,

"Is this him, is this the main one?

LAUGHTER

"Is it just this all night?

"Just a man complaining about things?"

Yes, it is, until at least ten o'clock.

LAUGHTER

Don't bring your friends because it's filled it up

with the wrong people, hasn't it? LAUGHTER

So, this perfectly serviceable stuff is floundering.

LAUGHTER

It's not help... I don't need your help to fill up.

This is all sold out.

LAUGHTER

If you're going, "No, it isn't, Stew, there's two there

"for starters," right, they're... All the seats are sold, right?

Everything's sold. What's happened to me in the last few years,

and I don't really understand why, right,

but I've become popular enough that the ticket touts buy these seats,

Stub Hub and that, and they try and resell them online.

But I'm not popular enough for anyone in Southend

to pay six times over the odds... LAUGHTER

Don't imagine that disheartens me, those empty seats.

Someone's bought them, right?

So, I've got the money. It's fine.

LAUGHTER

It's actually better cos it means I've got the money

but there isn't one of your stupid friends sitting in them going,

"What are these nouns, how do words work?"

You know... LAUGHTER

That's my dream -

an entirely sold out empty room.

LAUGHTER

Which would eliminate the main problem with all my work,

which is the public's ongoing inability to recognise its genius.

It's... LAUGHTER

This is a very difficult time in history to do stand-up

and I would appreciate your blanket support, to be honest.

It's very... It's very...

Look, I went back on the road in September, I did a week

in Oxford, right? That's Remain. Then I did Doncaster.

That's Leave. Then I did Glasgow, Remain.

Dartford, Leave. This is about 60-40 in favour of Leave, wasn't it?

And the Remain-voting cities, now, they loom out of the map,

don't they? Like fantasy citadels in a Tolkien-esque landscape.

LAUGHTER

Wondrous walled cities full of wizards and poets...

LAUGHTER

..and people who could understand data.

LAUGHTER

In the middle of a vast, swampy fen,

with, "Here there be trolls" written over it.

LAUGHTER

Yeah, down here, laughter up there.

People going, hang on... "Trolls, Stew?

"That's not a very fair way, you know...

"We are in Leave-voting Southend-on-Sea.

"Trolls, that's not a very fair way to describe the English and Welsh

"majority that exercised their democratic right to vote

"to leave the EU." And it isn't, to be fair.

You know, and I think, look, we're going to leave the EU.

That is happening. And I think people have got to put their

differences behind them now and try and make it work.