The Times’ best living stand-up Stewart Lee played a series of rescheduled shows at The Lowry between the 25th and 29th of January.
“Stewart Lee’s let himself go.”
This is the opening line of the current stand-up show of comedian Stewart Lee, Snowflake/Tornado, two different sets joined together into one evening.
The show was supposed to tour the UK in 2020, though due to COVID-19 was delayed for two years before actually being allowed to be put before an audience.
In the first half, Tornado, Lee talks about how, despite being named The Times greatest living stand-up in 2018, nobody actually knows who he is.
However, because of an incorrect Netflix description on his BBC series, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, many viewers’ first impression will be that his act consists of sharks raining from the sky over the east coast of the United States.
This being because it is actually the description of the 2013 disaster horror film, Sharknado, that has been mistakenly been attached to his show.
From there the act unravels like a domino run, comparing himself to work of more popularly known comedians such as Jimmy Carr, Dave Chapelle and Ricky Gervais.
It is told as if this all happened to Lee, a ridiculous series of events starting from an insulting GP visit, leading to being chased through London by Dave Chapelle’s bodyguards, and ending with the worst positive review from Alan Bennett.
The second half, Snowflake, is more free flowing, touching on politics, culture, television, comedy, and anything else you can think of.
There is some overlap in the content, as Lee returns to spoof the tropes of acts like Ricky Gervais describing themselves as ‘saying the unsayable.’
“He’s not though, is he,” Lee said. “By definition. He’s just saying the sayable.”
Snowflake, by Lee’s own admission, has been heavily rewritten in the two years delay following the pandemic, Brexit and the ups and downs of the culture wars.
But this is an inadequate description to convey how the show actually plays out.
In the first ten minutes of the act, Lee paused mid-joke to ask the sound team to change the levels. A moment later he turned to the audience and said “That wasn’t scripted, by the way.” Then, turning away, “Or was it? You’ll never know.”
In the past Lee has had elaborate set-ups and pay-offs in his shows that border on insane for the level of intricacy – yet maintaining a fluidity so as to appear almost natural.
Throughout the show, you know that Lee has constructed everything, fine-tuned every joke, and has such a great understanding of how a room shifts and changes in response to an act so as always to be in control.
But at the same time, there are trills of improvisation, references to the audience’s reaction (or lack thereof), or acknowledgement of when something just isn’t working, so it never feels staged or like he’s just saying the next bit to get to the next bit to get to the end.
Instead it’s about an hour and a half of controlled weirdness, simultaneously free and secure – and most importantly, funny in a way no-one else is.
The show may be centred around a conceit of nobody knowing who Stewart Lee is, but if you do you’re certainly glad about it.
Stewart Lee’s Snowflake/Tornado national tour is from January to July 2022, and a second show Basic Lee starts a London run later this year before touring nationally, coming to the The Lowry in April 2023.
