I watched the latest Stewart Lee DVD yesterday.
We went to go and see him perform the show live when he was in Oxford earlier this year, but the DVD was still amazing and seemed fresh.
I have a theory that Lee's stand-up is comedy in its purest form. He speaks slowly, and uses lots of repetition, and it seems like he's testing out every verbal nuance and pause and intonation, just to see what's funny. He builds up our expectations, and then delivers what we're expecting - which is surprising in itself - but will manipulate the audience with a look or a slight change. It's really quite impressive.
The best example of this is a bit where he acts out Richard Littlejohn carving writing into a gravestone (around 4:50 on the below video).
A lot of the bit is acting out the chiselling by hitting the mic against the mic-stand. That's it. But the fun is in the rhythm of what he's doing. He's presumably worked out, over the course of touring the show, what rhythms are funny. Is it funny to make random sounds, or to make it more regular? Should you hit it three times or four? When should you pause?
It's the purest form of comedy - just (literal not comedic) beats.
There must be some deeply-felt humour instincts that makes us laugh at particular things. Lee explores humour on a fundamental level - no context, no word-play, no character - just the essence of 'funny'.
Of course, he does word-play and character as well. An hour and five minutes of mic-stand knocking might wear a bit thin. But maybe not.
Anyway, that's why he's my favourite stand-up. Even though I probably wouldn't get on with him in real life - he's to cynical and a bit of a music snob. What a dick.
In fact: fuck Stewart Lee!
