Arts > Comedy

Stewart Lee

Norwich Theatre Royal

25/03/24

A stripped-down, deceptively casual performance from Stewart Lee on Sunday flashes past. As ever, his set is skilfully constructed and, as ever, the various elements of the construction – some definitely ironic, some definitely not, most existing in a strangely familiar no-man’s land – are put into place and then whisked away with such speed that just keeping track of the various strands generates its own satisfaction.  If he seems more content this time round, it might be on account of a long tour nearing its conclusion. Or possibly there is some connection here to the almost flattering level of attention he’s paid to the local references (Wymondham, Bungay, Roger Eno, the Arts Centre, muntjacs in the turnips and Great Yarmouth’s thriving jazz scene all get a mention) and the faint suggestion that the heightened level of his disdain at the region might actually be concealing something approaching affection.

He’s ludicrously talented as both writer and performer and slips between registers in an almost alarmingly adept way. Sections involving JK Rowling, Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the imagined pomposity of his fans and brief histories of both stand-up comedy and jazz introduce new themes and subvert expectations about existing ones in a heady mix. Often you are left wondering what Lee really thinks about a subject. Sometimes you’re left wondering what you really think – are you laughing at something ironically? Or genuinely? Is it ok to laugh at it ironically? Or genuinely? Or both?

When both delivery method and subject matter shift dramatically and the audience is left wondering where the newly personal nature is going, it takes a moment to realise that he told us he was going to do this, and anyway, he’s not doing it anymore – we’re going somewhere else now. Is his performance, as his suggests, like jazz? Is it pretentious to compare it to jazz? Do the answers to either of those questions really matter if it works as well as this?

When I’ve seen him perform before, there have always been stretches of time where I’ve become slightly disengaged from the performance; where I’ve been able to admire the craft without feeling any particular emotional resonance. That doesn’t happen tonight – throughout the near two-hour performance I’m rapt. I leave the Theatre Royal grateful to have witnessed such an assured, skilled and thoughtful act. If, as he instructs us, the closing section of his set only works if the audience feels envious of him, it’s difficult not to comply.