Arts > Comedy

Stewart Lee

Norwich Theatre Royal

09/02/17

Stewart Lee’s back with his new live show, Content Provider. Opening with an exploration of Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, in reference to man in the age of digital consumption, in classic SL style this quickly blurs into an ocean of things that the show is not supposed to be about. Whether it’s jokes about Brexit, people under 40, S&M sex through the ages (including an uncomfortable segment about everyone’s grandparents) or Russell Howard, Lee’s irreverent style of talking about the things that he definitely did not intend to talk about hit the ground running with the sold out crowd, most of which were clearly familiar with his style (although he didn’t let that stop him from riffing with the audience about how he would rather people stopped bringing their uninitiated friends to the show as some sort of sympathy vote).

Lee seemed at ease, pleased to be back on stage, and completely in control of the audience. For me, there’s pure comedy genius in the way he purposefully undermines the success of his own show whilst it’s happening, with observations and theories about why the audience may not have understood the joke as well as he intended, or simply not laughed as hard as they should (presumably because us Norwichians are that little bit more detached from the “metropolitan elite” of London). Having said that, it’s not all at the audience’s expense. Lee isn’t afraid to turn his scorn on himself like a comedy shotgun in his own mouth, as he refers to himself as an “ex TV comic” (following the unfathomable cancellation of his critically acclaimed Comedy Vehicle), who buys his own secondhand DVDs to push their online price above those of his peers, before going “full meta” to bemoan how he is starting to become sick of the character of Stewart Lee.

The moments that shine the brightest though, are the ones where, just as you think the whole show has gone off its carefully structured rails, it suddenly veers back on course, and before you know it Lee’s standing in a sea of fog, brandishing a selfie stick in a call-back that you thought had long since been abandoned. It was good. How good? Well, good enough to sell out, but not so good for the optimistic (and very possibly imaginary) touts that were left empty-pocketed after trying to sell front row seats online for £150 each. But as Lee himself said, he wouldn’t rather have it any other way.

9/10