This programme contains strong language and adult humour.
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Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Stewart Lee's let himself go."
Since you last saw me, I've gone bald, I've gone blind,
I've gone grey, I've gone deaf, I've put on a lot of weight.
I've put on so much weight, I'm now the sort of person
who buys his shirts at motorway service station lorry drivers'
clothing outlets, and I pay for them with points earned
on a loyalty card from the West Cornwall Pasty Company.
I've developed high blood pressure. I have to go in for a check-up
every three months at my GP in Hackney in north London.
I went in about two months ago and I sat down
and the nurse sort of took a look at me there and she made...
She doesn't know who I am, the nurse. She doesn't know that
I'm The Times newspaper's world's greatest living stand-up comedian.
A lot of people don't, do they?
There's a couple of empty seats there.
No, she just sees a little grey, fat old man,
and she sat me down and she put a comforting hand on my knee,
the nurse, and she said to me,
"Is there anyone looking after you at home?"
Then she said, "Do you know, Mr Lee, you're over 50 years old now.
"You're over 50 years old.
"If you go down to any Hackney Council-funded leisure centre,
"you now qualify for free sessions of chair-based activity."
It's a low bar, isn't it, chair-based?
"Don't get him out of a chair. He'll die."
I... I stand up for living. It is in my job title, literally.
So I was blind, I was bald, I was deaf, I was grey, I was fat,
medical professionals said I shouldn't risk getting up
out of a chair, so I was feeling pretty depressed about myself.
So in search of self-esteem, I googled myself,
right, which you must never do.
And I found the most visited reference to me on the internet,
the thing most people have read about me,
It's on the website of Netflix, the world's largest
stand-up comedy content provision platform.
This is the most visited piece of information about me in the world.
There's a picture of me going like that...
...and underneath it says...
..."Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle -
"reports of sharks falling from the skies are on the rise again."
"And nobody on the Eastern Seaboard is safe."
And that's most people in the world's idea...
...of what I'm all about. Let's have a look at that again.
There's a picture of me going like that
and underneath it says, "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle -
"reports of sharks falling from the skies
"are on the rise again."
You thought you'd seen the back of that, probably.
"And nobody on the Eastern Seaboard is safe."
And that listing stayed up there on Netflix for two fucking years.
Is it any wonder that the Netflix viewers stayed away in their droves?
Cos when they tuned in, they were disappointed, weren't they,
to find that Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle
contained precisely no falling marine carnivores whatsoever.
And at no point was anyone on any seaboard of the United States
put in any kind of shark-based jeopardy!
Featuring instead, as it did, merely an out-of-shape, middle-aged man
complaining about global politics from a centre-left position
while simultaneously pretentiously deconstructing
the very art form of stand-up itself.
And they didn't want to see that, did they?!
The Netflix viewers. No, they wanted to see the sort of thing
that Netflix viewers like to see, like Ricky Gervais's Afterlife.
The televisual equivalent of a nine-hour crying wank.
"Oh, my wife, she died."
"Oh, she's on the beach with... Oh, she's in the hospital now.
"Oh, she's swimming in the river...
"Urgh! Urgh!
"Urgh...! Ah!"
That's my review of that.
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle -
reports of sharks falling from the skies are on the rise again
and nobody on the Eastern Seaboard is safe.
I thought maybe if I made that show as described by Netflix,
they'd buy it, right?
It's quite difficult, isn't it, to combine stand-up comedy
with loads of falling sharks,
particularly if you're trying to tour it.
You'd need...
You'd need loads of articulated lorries, loads of tanks
of saltwater, loads of shark handlers, loads of sharks,
some method of launching the sharks at the stage.
So I wrote a proposal for that tour.
I submitted it to the Ambassador Theatre Group chain
and they wrote back saying raining live sharks down onto stage
and audience would, and I quote,
"Almost certainly fall short of even the most cursory risk assessment."
"Theatres' policies...", it goes on, "..irrespective of whether
"the venue is privately owned or council-funded,
"are to prioritise the elimination of hazards,
"so it is unlikely, therefore, Mr Lee, that any performance
"based on the introduction of live marine carnivores
"into an area where the public are likely to be present
"could be staged by any British theatre, though it is possible
"that these draconian restrictions may become more liberal
"since our departure from the EU..."
"..allowing members of the public to submit themselves deliberately
"to fatal shark attacks should they wish to do so,
"free from the interference of Brussels. Take back control."
Normally, there's applause there and there's a little extra bit
I can do in all the other towns, but, erm...
...not here tonight.
No, it's gone now. Shame. No, I'm not doing it.
It's a shame because I'm filming this for the BBC
and it would have been nice to get all the best bits in,
but obviously, here in York, there's a resistance to joy, so...
You know, where other crowds would respond ecstatic.
I chose this venue because of the architecture, really,
not because of the sort of people that live here, so...
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle - reports of sharks falling...
Those of you who've brought people with you who've not seen me before
because you told them I was good,
this is the point where they nudge you and go, "Is this it?
"Does he just repeat the same sentences over and over again
"like an angry TED talk?"
Yes.
In the first hour, it's just this sentence over and over again
about the sharks and then it stops.
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle -
reports of sharks falling from the skies are on the rise again
and no-one on the Eastern Seaboard is safe.
I would go as far as to suggest that that being
the world's main point of information about me for two years
may have negatively impacted on the market penetration
of my brand, right?
So let's have a look at some of the listings
for some of the other top comedians on Netflix.
And let's see if in their case there's a closer relationship
or indeed any fucking relationship at all...
...between what Netflix have said they do and what they do.
This is the Netflix listing for Dave Chappelle.
If you've not heard of Dave Chappelle,
he's massive in the States and he's Rolling Stone magazine's
the world's ninth best living stand-up, so...
You can snigger about that if you like, but actually I don't...
Well, I don't set any store by any of those lists of the 100 best.
I think they're all nonsense.
But The Times is probably better, isn't it, as a...
...journal of record.
So...
This is Netflix's listing for Dave Chappelle.
"Dave Chappelle gets real about racially-charged run-ins,
"celebrity scandals and fatherly dilemmas
"in a searing stand-up set recorded at Austin's Moody Theatre."
That's the kind of thing you want, isn't it?
Yeah, you'd read that, you'd watch that and you'd go,
"Yeah, that's what it is. It was that." Right? And that's...
Are there any sharks falling on him? No.
And that's all I'm asking for, York - a level playing field.
Let's have a look at this one.
This is the Netflix listing for Jimmy Carr.
Right, Jimmy Carr has been in the news this year
for being controversial.
I actually wrote this material before the pandemic, right,
so I don't want you to think I've tried to write topical stuff.
I don't do sort of topical ambulance-chasing material.
I write what I write and I wait for reality to align with it.
The Netflix listing for Jimmy Carr.
"Jimmy Carr. Nothing is off limits..."
Except compassion, humanity, self-knowledge and shame.
It doesn't say that. I've written that in.
Let's read the real thing and stop mucking around.
"Jimmy Carr. Nothing is off limits..."
Except tax. Tax and the payment of tax!
It doesn't say that, York. I've written that in.
Let's read the real thing. "Jimmy Carr. Nothing is off limits..."
Except a five-star review in a broadsheet newspaper.
Yeah, look at me.
Guardian, Independent, Times, Telegraph, Mail on Sunday.
That's right.
Even the right-wing press must bow towards my obvious superiority.
Let's read the real thing.
"Jimmy Carr. Nothing is off limits..."
Except an honorary fellowship from a top university.
I've got one, York.
And a parking space. Let's read the real thing.
"Jimmy Carr.
"Nothing is off limits as Jimmy Carr serves up outrageous jokes..."
He serves up his jokes, doesn't he?
Serves up his jokes.
Some comedians deliver their jokes, don't they?
They deliver them. Like timid little postmen, they deliver them.
"Hello, Mrs Jenkins.
"I've got a joke for you."
"No, you've got to sign for it I'm afraid, love,
"because it's racist." But...
...Jimmy Carr serves up his jokes, doesn't he?
He serves them up out of a massive, steaming-hot cauldron
full of rape jokes. All the rape jokes are in there.
"Get your dish! Rape jokes!
"Rape jokes! Rape jokes!
"Rape! Rape!
"Ha-ha! Rape!"
Those are awfully generous helpings of rape jokes, Jimmy.
Are you sure that's cost-effective?
Doesn't matter. It's tax deductible. Let's read the real thing.
"Jimmy Carr. Nothing is off limits as Jimmy Carr serves up
"outrageous jokes in a special that's not for the faint of heart."
That's the kind of thing you want, isn't it?
And that's all I'm asking for, yeah?
I would like it if in the Venn diagram of this,
the circle of what Netflix say I do
could overlap at some point with the circle of what I do.
Rather than them being two entirely free-floating spheres.
Trigonometry joke, York, on a Wednesday.
Not a massive response for that, was there?
Not a massive response.
And yet one person enjoying it alone.
They imagined if they cheered, other people would join in,
but it didn't happen.
Weird though, because you take, like...
Six weeks ago I was in Oxford
and that was the most popular joke of the night there,
the trigonometry joke.
And that's the thing about this job. I've been doing it 33 years now.
Every town, every night, every audience, every show is different.
And that's why I'm fucking sick of it. Really.
I'm sick of it because...
...no matter how many...
There doesn't seem to be any way to...
So I was blind, I was bald, I was fat, I was grey,
medical professionals said I shouldn't get out of a chair,
and Netflix have told the whole world that all my shows
are just fish falling out of clouds and...
I was sick of it.
And then a friend of mine said, "This will cheer you up.
"You've got a really good review in the London Review of Books..."
It's a classy paper. "..from none other than Alan Bennett," right?
Do people know who Alan Bennett is?
Some people, not everyone though, even in York, and that's because
there are too many young people here, aren't there...
...dragging it down, and what happens is...
People that have been coming to see me for 30 years, you think,
"Ooh, let's take our teenagers to see him," don't you?
And you go, "You really should see this guy, actually, Jeremy."
"Yeah, he's quite a significant figure. Erm..."
"Me and your mother used to go and see him all the time in London
"before we moved up here in the pandemic, and..."
"You probably won't understand it, or like it,
"but when you're old, you'll think it's amazing that you saw him."
"And of course he died soon afterwards."
"He seemed unwell on the night. He seemed...
"..tired and agitated."
But, erm...
Alan Bennett is your fucking spiritual king of York,
You know, Alan Bennett,
the godfather of post-war British comedy.
In the '50s, Beyond the Fringe.
And then he wrote Talking Heads and The Lady in the Van
and all this stuff, and without Alan Bennett,
you wouldn't have had Monty Python, you wouldn't have had
the '70s alternative comedy. Nothing. There would be nothing.
You might be here tonight, but you'd be looking at an empty stage, right?
But because it's my empty stage,
it would still get five stars in The Guardian.
"Lee didn't even come to York that night.
"The stage was empty for two-and-a-half hours.
"What better comment is there on the state of government today?
"Five stars, the Guardian." So...
I was very pleased to get a good review off Alan Bennett.
I thought maybe I could meet Alan Bennett
and maybe I could become friends with Alan Bennett, right,
because I've not got... I've not got many friends who are comedians.
No.
I don't know why that is.
I think it's been difficult for the other comedians
to make friends with me since The Times called me
the world's greatest living stand-up.
♪ Heavy is the head that wears the crown. ♪
Do you know who that song is by? Do you?
You don't, no? It's Stormzy.
Yeah. And you are racist.
So...
He's not. He's not really.
So...
He's just the person that looked least likely
to know who Stormzy was.
But I did want to make friends with some of them.
And there was one young comedian particularly I wanted to
make friends with because he'd inspired me to carry on
when I was going to give up. You would know who he is.
He's on TV all the time. But I can't tell you who he is
because when we finally did meet, it didn't reflect well on either of us.
What happened was, we were both on this sort of charity bill
at the London Palladium, right?
I thought, great, I'll get to meet the young TV comedian,
because normally he's got all minders around him and stuff.
I thought, what I'll do is, when he's on, I will sort of hide
at the side of the stage and as he comes off I'll jump out on him
and I'll become his friend. So he was on, right...
He's a young TV comedian, he's on stage, he's doing his act,
and he was going, "Why is it, right, that when you go in the...
"When you...
"When you go in the shop, yeah, there's, erm...
"Down in the front bit, like, where all the stuff is...
"there's like...
"There's loads... It's all cramped up in the front,
"where they sell the stuff, it's all cramped and small,
"where they sell the stuff in the front of the shop, yeah?
"But then out the back, behind the counter,
"that's all empty and it's massive. What's that all about?"
"What's going on there?"
And all the audience are going, "Ah, ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha!"
And I was watching that, right?
And I thought, well, I know why that is.
Right, does anyone...? This isn't a trick, right?
Does anyone here tonight know why it's in the financial interest
of shopkeepers to try to reduce the floor space
of the retail area of a shop? Anyone know?
Anyone? No?
Every other night of the tour, someone's known.
Does anyone know?
In what's normally a quick exchange... What?
What?
Has someone brought a dog?
It isn't that. It's not... Whatever that was...
...it's not a one-syllable phrase.
Does anyone know? Business rates.
Business rates is the exact correct answer.
That's very helpful tonight. How do you know that?
Do you work in local government, or retail?
No. What?
So...
Did you say "both" or "no"?
No. Well, how do you...? Do you just know things?
How do you know it? Knowledge is power.
What? Knowledge is power.
Did you just say Reginald Farrell? That's what it sounded like.
It's not Reginald Farrell, no. What it is, um...
Reginald Farrell is nothing to do with how...
With business rates. I don't know why you'd say that.
So... It's, um...
Reginald Farrell? What the fuck's that?!
So, the... Reginald Farrell? Who shouts that out at a...?!
"Ha, I'm going to should out Reginald Farrell, that'll get him!
"Cos he'll think it's someone he should have heard of,
"but he won't know it's a name I just made up.
"It sounds like a historic person, doesn't it, from York,
"that he should have known of, and he'll be thinking, Who's that?
"It isn't anyone! Ha!" So...
Right... It's not Reginald Farrell. What it is is...
It's business rates, right? You pay a higher business rate
depending on the size of the floor space of your shop and obviously...
And I thought I'd better tell this young comedian that, right?
In case he came here to do his act and someone went...
Someone shouted "Reginald Farrell" at him.
And threw him.
I thought I'd better tell him, but I've got a problem
and I don't mind owning up to it. There's something about me,
if I know something and I try to tell someone
they're wrong about something,
it could come across as patronising, I think. And...
Luckily, I've been able to monetise it, professionally.
But it's awkward in life. I'll give an example of what I mean.
I was in Nottingham about a year ago
and I was walking along the main street in Nottingham
and I walked past one of these baked potato vans in the street,
you've seen them about, and it was green and on the side of it,
there was a picture of Robin Hood, shooting his arrow,
and then on the top, and this was the stupid thing about it,
really, it said, "Robin Hood's Jacket Potatoes."
I know. I thought, "Well, I can't leave that..." So, I...
So I got in the queue and, um...
And after about 25 minutes, I was at the front...
...and the baked potato woman, Nottingham woman, she said,
"Can I help you, me ducks?"
And I said, "Yes, is this your baked potato van,
"Robin Hood's Jacket Potatoes?"
She said, "It is. I set it up with my husband about 30 year ago,
"he's passed on now, but I like to come down and do the potatoes."
And I went, "Oh..." And, um...
"Was it your idea to call it Robin Hood's Jacket Potatoes?"
And she said, "Well, he were from here, Nottingham,
"so I thought that was a good name."
I went, "Yeah, the thing is, it isn't, is it? Because, um..."
She said, "I beg your pardon." And I went, "Well, the problem is,
"and I'm sure you've looked into this, that if...
"If Robin Hood was a real historical character,
"he would have been around between about 1350 and 1380.
"But potatoes...
"..didn't even come to Britain until the mid-1500s."
She said, "Well, what's your point?" And I said, "Well...
"The point is that Robin Hood
"wouldn't have even known what a potato was,
"let alone have had a preferred method of baking them."
She said, "Do you want a jacket potato, what?" I said,
"No, I don't want one from you,
"cos you don't know anything about them.
"I'll just get one out of a dog-muck bin on the way home, you know,
"and eat that."
And then she's crying, people are shoving me around,
but so, that's the...
That's the problem I have, right?
So anyway, he's finished his act, this young comic,
and as he was coming off, I jumped out on him and I went,
"Ooh, can I talk to you about your act, please?"
And he went, "Well, it looks like you're going to."
And I went, "I am, yes, cos some of it is wrong
"and you need to look at it. Now, you know when you're talking about
"the floor space in the shops being small?
"Do you know why that is?"
And he went, "No, but you're going to tell me, aren't you?"
And I said, "I am, because it's wrong
"and what you'll find in stand-up, the older you get
"and the more you do it is that you can have an exaggerated
"sort of punchline, or something,
"but the set-up of things does need to be factually accurate, otherwise
"we're in a sort of lawless zone, the desert in Mad Max, you know."
So, I said to him, "What it is, it's business rates
"and you pay a higher business rate
"depending on the floor space of your shop,
"so your joke needs to either be cut from your set,
"or it needs to address that, and you need to look at that."
And he went, "Well, you've told me now, haven't you?"
I went...
"Do you want to go for a Chinese?"
And he just walked off.
Josh Widdicombe, that was.
Josh Widdicombe. And, um...
It was, it was Josh Widdicombe. And it's a shame, right,
because I did want to make friends with Josh Widdicombe
and I'll tell you why.
Because about 15 years ago, he inspired me not to quit, right?
What happened was, I didn't know,
but I'd been going progressively deaf
and I got to the point where I couldn't hear audiences at all
and I think that's partly why I developed
this belligerent onstage persona.
Actually, the gigs were going a lot better than I realised.
Er...
I've got hearing aids now, so I'm all right.
There they are. Feeding back.
But there was a point where I couldn't really work
cos of my disability, I suppose,
and I was very depressed and one night,
I was sitting at home and I found myself watching The Last Leg
on Channel 4, with all the disabled comedians on it, you know.
And...
Josh Widdicombe came on.
And I thought, "Well, if he can do it..."
"You know, with whatever it is he's got..."
I don't know what it is, but it must be really bad,
cos they always gloss over it, don't they? They don't mention it. So...
So I went out and I bought a copy of the London Review of Books
and this is Alan Bennett, godfather of post-war British comedy's idea
of a good review of me.
"Lee makes stand-up..."
Yeah, I've not wasted the last two years.
I've been learning all the impressions.
All the different impressions.
Alan Bennett...
All the impressions.
"Lee makes stand-up
"almost a moral pursuit,
"predicting an audience's reaction, or lack of reaction..."
"..to his material in a way that makes other stand-ups
"seem obvious. He's fearless, undeterred by an audience's failure
"to respond." Sick of it! What's this, now?
What's that?! What's that, there?
That's people responding!
"Erving Goffman would have liked Stewart Lee..."
What does that mean?! Who's Erving Goffman?!
"Erving Goffman would have liked Stewart Lee."
That's a quote for the poster, isn't it?
That'll pack them in at the Bradford Alhambra!
"it's austere stuff. Stewart Lee is the JL Austin of comedy."
What does it mean, JL Austin?!
"Erving Goffman... Erving Goffman would have liked Stewart Lee."
I Googled Erving Goffman.
"Erving Goffman was the most influential American sociologist
"of the 20th century.
"His major areas of study include social interaction,
"the social construction of self, social organisation of experience
"and particular elements of social life
"such as institutions and stigmas."
And he would have loved me, wouldn't he, Erving Goffman?
He'd be rolling around in a tsunami of his own urine by now!
"Stewart Lee is the JL Austin of comedy." Right, "JL Austin...
"..was a British philosopher of language,
"perhaps best known..." If at all, to be fair!
"..for the theory of speech acts.
"Austin's work ultimately suggests that all speech and all utterance
"is the doing of something with words and signs,
"challenging a metaphysics of language that would posit
"propositional assertion as the essence of language and meaning."
And I'm the him of this!
I'm the him of this.
And if you've come along here tonight, York,
hoping to see two and a half hours of the kind of
JL Austin-influenced stand-up that Erving Goffman would have loved,
you can fuck off, cos it's not going to be that, is it?
This is the kiss of death, this Alan Bennett review.
This is worse, isn't it, than,
"Reports of sharks falling from the skies are on the rise again,
"and no-one on the Eastern Seaboard is safe."
It's not fair, is it?
You know, this Dave Chappelle bloke from America
and Jimmy Carr and that, they're not being compared unhelpfully
to loads of dead linguistic philosophers, are they?
This Dave Chappelle bloke, and Jimmy Carr,
they've not got Netflix telling the whole world that
all their shows are just fish falling out of clouds and stuff.
Doesn't say on Netflix, does it,
"Dave Chappelle. A turbot lands in North Hertfordshire...
"..and a woman in Hitchin is bewildered."
No, it doesn't say that. And you know why?
Cos this Dave Chappelle bloke from America, he's a Hollywood superstar
and he's got status - some of it earned, some of it manufactured.
In fact, last year, Dave Chappelle's Hollywood people,
they sent out a press release and it said, "Dave Chappelle is so massive,
"he's done over 1,600 shows in the last four years."
Now, I worked that out, right?
That's more than one show a day, which is possible,
but only if Dave Chappelle lives permanently on a private plane that
is always flying in the opposite direction to the Earth's rotation.
It's not a great joke, that, I'll level with you.
It's sort of garbled,
but it sets up a much better joke in about ten minutes' time.
And when you see that, you'll go,
"Oh, I see why that was there." So...
No, he's got status...
Hollywood superstar comedian, he's got status, Dave Chappelle.
And I saw how this status worked close at hand. I'll tell you why.
What happened was, right,
when I write a new show, I run it in for six months,
six nights a week, at this 350-seater little theatre,
the Leicester Square Theatre in London, right?
And I got to the end of a six-month run there,
it was a Saturday night, I was doing the seven till nine slot,
and everyone was really excited, cos for one night only,
American Hollywood comedy superstar Dave Chappelle, he was doing
a sort of one-night low-key test the water in London sort of show.
And I thought I'd better see Dave Chappelle,
so I bought a ticket, 150 quid, and...
All right, fine. It's not...
Normally, the whole room goes, "Ooh! That's a lot," you know?
Weird, York, isn't it? "Oh..."
It's not a wealthy county, is it?
But the actual town itself, as you walk around the streets, it's...
It is marked by conspicuous consumption
of expensive tat, isn't it?
You'd spend that on a teapot, wouldn't you? 150 quid.
With a picture of Freddie Trueman's face on it.
It's a lot of money to a normal person, 150 quid, right? So...
And I thought maybe I could meet Dave Chappelle, you know,
maybe I could become his friend.
Why do you find that laughable?
I find that quite offensive!
I knew I'd meet him, right? Cos there's only two dressing rooms
in there, they're both about the size of a Travelodge bathroom.
They're not miles away, like here,
they're just on the side of the stage, so...
And he couldn't get to the one he was in without going past
the one I was in, so I knew I'd see him.
The only awkward thing was it might be difficult, what with me
being the world's best living stand-up comedian
and him being the ninth, you know.
But I thought, I'll make a joke out of it. I'll go...
"Hello, number nine. Number one here."
"Welcome to England. You'll find the audiences aren't armed." So...
So I came in, you know, six o'clock, to set up,
but all the staff were in a panic, freaking out, cos what had happened
was Dave Chappelle's Hollywood people,
they'd sent through a rider,
that's a list of demands for backstage,
but it was the same sort of rider they obviously normally send to,
you know, Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, or the Hollywood Bowl,
or something, and they'd sent it to this little 300-odd seater
fringe theatre, so the woman on duty, she was absolutely in a panic.
She'd been told to take all the lightbulbs out of Dave Chappelle's
dressing room, 100-odd white lightbulbs round the mirror,
and to replace them all with red lightbulbs,
the idea being presumably that it would feel like
some sort of boudoir, but the room was so small,
it just felt like you were trapped in the rear light of a Ford Fiesta.
There was people carrying in buckets of champagne on ice,
I've never seen that, and the weirdest thing of all,
on the one flat surface in the room, presumably at his insistence,
there were two rotisserie chickens,
spinning on their own rotisserie skewers.
Red lights, champagne on ice,
and two rotisserie chickens,
spinning on their own rotisserie skewers.
Now, bear in mind, Dave Chappelle's done over 1,600 gigs
in the last four years.
at two chickens a gig, that's nearly 3,500 chickens.
That's not a backstage rider. That's a pogrom against poultry.
Red lights, champagne on ice,
and two rotisserie chickens, on their own rotisserie skewers.
That's not a backstage rider.
That's a shopping list for a date with a woman
who you really want to sleep with,
who you've been told really, really loves rotisserie chicken.
Come on in, honey.
I got soft red lighting...
I got chilled champagne on ice...
I got John Coltrane on the stereo...
I got fine wine in the freezer...
And, honey...
...cos I know what you like...
...I got two...
...fine, fine, fine...
...rotisserie chickens, honey.
Yeah.
And... And they're spinning...
...all night long...
...on their own...
...rotisserie skewers.
And all of that hot, hot chicken juice is...
It's bubbling up out of the chicken, honey.
And it's dripping down the chicken.
The chicken juice is dripping down,
dripping down the chicken. It's dripping down...
...into the drip tray.
And if you like, honey, cos I know what you like...
...you can lap that chicken juice up...
...straight out of the drip tray...
...like a hungry little cat. Like a cat!
Like a hungry cat!
Yeah, that's right... That's right, honey. That's right.
Bathe in the soft red lighting.
Sample my fine champagne.
And drink that hot chicken juice, yeah.
Drink the chicken juice, honey. Drink it down.
Drink the chicken juice. That's what you like. You like chicken juice.
So drink it down. It's hot... Hot, juicy chicken juice.
Drink it down, honey. Drink the chicken juice. It's what...
It's what you like, you like the chicken juice.
Drink it down. Drink the chicken juice. Drink it.
That's a good girl. Drink the chicken juice down.
Good... That's a good girl.
Drink it down. Drink the... Drink the chicken juice.
Drink the chicken juice down, honey. Drink it down. It's hot!
Hot chicken juice.
Drink it down, drink the chicken juice, down, honey.
Drink it down. Drink the chicken juice down.
Drink it down. Drink the chicken juice. Dri... Dri... Oh, honey!
You got some chicken juice running down your face!
Hold still while I kiss it off. I'll kiss...
I'll kiss the chicken juice off your beautiful face.
That's right, honey! Drink... Drink the chicken juice, honey.
Drink it down. Drink the... Put your...
Put your face in the drip tray... Put your face...
I'm not sure about that bit, really. I'll probably...
Should probably not do that.
Red lights! Champagne on ice!
And two rotisserie chickens, on their own rotisserie skewers!
That backstage rider, that's just about status.
It's designed to intimidate people.
Do you know what my backstage rider is?
Pork pie, tin of Bovril, unpublished Franz Kafka manuscript.
So...
I was coming up to the end of my act,
I was supposed to finish at nine,
I thought I'd try and come down early for Dave. Shows can overrun.
I was down by 8:58, two minutes early,
I thought I'd try and help him out, you know, and by nine o'clock,
I was in the bar, drinking,
celebrating the end of my six-month run,
with a view towards being drunk by ten o'clock,
when Dave Chappelle's 150-quid show was supposed to start,
cos I don't know about you,
but I can't really relax or enjoy myself unless I'm drunk. Er...
Particularly in the evenings, cos the voices come.
You're sitting there trying to watch something and the voices come,
don't they? And they go, "Kill yourself, you stupid fucking idiot!"
And you go, "Argh! No!"
But if you... If you drink,
they go quiet, don't they? You know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, you know! You know, the voices that come at night.
We all get them, don't we? Did you, um...?
Yeah, the night voices. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
Did you find...? A lot of people did, I know I did.
Did you find under lockdown
they were worse, weren't they, the voices?
Because they started coming in the day, didn't they, as well?
Not just at night. And you'd be out...
You probably did the same as me, you'd be out for your walk
in the park in the day, and then the voices come, they go,
"Eat that fucking dog shit! Eat it!" And you...
You're going, "No, I don't want to! No! Leave me alone!"
So you know what I'm talking about. You've had that problem.
So what I... Yeah, the voices in the day.
So what I did, I bought a big black coat -
you probably did something like this - with pockets,
big pockets and I'd hide bottles of gin and vodka in there,
and then I'd go out for my walk, you know, and they'd go,
"Put glass in that pram! Put glass in the pram!" And I'd go, "Neh..."
Then I'd get the vodka and drink all that down in one and I'd go,
"Yeah, that's made you go! Go away!"
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, don't you?
You know what I'm talking about. The voices. In the day.
Yeah? A bit of observational comedy, there. Trying to...
Trying to... Trying to broaden my range.
I sense some of you have been a bit baffled by some aspects of the show,
but there's something we can all relate to.
Not forgetting the viewers at home, thinking,
"It looks a bit like Live At The Apollo, but it isn't.
"It seems to be a documentation of mental breakdown."
So...
So by...
So, 9:30, the doors opened, and then 9:30,
the rotisserie chickens were spinning in the dressing room,
but they weren't miles away, like at Wembley,
they're just at the side of the stage, right?
So 9:30 on a Saturday night, there's loads of drunk Londoners
wandering in, going, "Do they do chicken here now?
"Can you get chicken sent to the...?"
I sat down in my 150-quid seat. It got to ten o'clock,
Dave Chappelle's 150-quid show was supposed to start.
Nothing happened. He wasn't even in the building.
I would have seen him, right?
It got to 10:45, an hour and a quarter after doors,
three-quarters of an hour after his 150-quid set
was supposed to start, he still wasn't in the building.
And then, suddenly, unannounced, this little bloke comes out,
Neal Brennan, quite a good American stand-up,
who writes a lot for Dave Chappelle, and he did about three minutes
and then he lost his nerve and he just ran off, right?
And I think what had happened was...
It was actually going well, right, but by British standards. OK?
But...
You know...
He wouldn't have known what the fuck was going on here, I tell you.
But it wasn't like when you watch stand-up in America on TV
and it's just an hour of people going, "Argh! Ah-ah! Argh! Argh!"
Bloke comes out, he goes, "Boston!" And they go, "That's here!
"This is Boston! He's just said the name of where we are!
"That's here!"
33 years of touring the UK, that doesn't happen here, right?
If I go out and I go, "Carlisle!", people go, "Yeah, we know."
"We only come out to forget."
So he runs off, this Neal Brennan. A good act, to be honest.
And then it gets to about 11:15, an hour and three-quarters after doors,
75 minutes after Dave Chappelle's show was supposed to start,
150-quid show, he's still not in the building, I'd have seen him.
Suddenly, unannounced, your favourite comes out,
that you all like, Jimmy Carr, for a tight ten of rape
and anti-gypsy stuff, so that was good.
Everyone loved that. And then he goes off.
Then it gets to 11:30, and I see, two hours after doors,
90 minutes after his 150-quid show was supposed to start,
I see Dave Chappelle sneak in via the box office.
He comes round and he comes out onto the stage, unannounced,
half 11, and there's a kind of weird,
confused smattering of applause.
And then I felt almost patriotic
as a lone English voice shouted out...
"Why are you late?"
And it wasn't like America,
where they go, "Argh! I've seen you in a film! Argh!"
It was just someone, probably with a baby-sitter, you know, going,
"Why are you late?"
And this is what he said, Dave Chappelle, I wrote it down.
He said he'd been waiting backstage all night,
which was a 100% barefaced lie, he hadn't been there.
"But," he said, "there was another act on before us
"and he didn't finish on time."
Yes!
That's right, York.
Far from becoming my friend,
American Hollywood comedy superstar Dave Chappelle,
he just threw me under the bus. He threw me under the bus.
Now, it's fair to say that on that night,
what with it being the end of my run and what with the delayed start,
I'd miscalibrated my drinking.
So he came out and he said I'd made him late,
so I jumped up in my seat and I went, "No, I fucking didn't!
"I was done at 8:58... Fucking hell, eh!"
And then my wife, she grabbed me and she stopped me.
That's what they're for, isn't it, to stop you?
She said, "Get out."
I stumbled out into the foyer and Martin, who owns the theatre,
he stopped me and he said, "Are you all right?"
I went, "Not really, Martin. That wanker Dave Chappelle
"is a wanker, and he's on stage and he's making up...
"Making up lies about me."
And then I realised I was being approached at speed
from all different corners of the room
by six big blokes in combat uniforms,
on walkie-talkies - Dave Chappelle's private security team,
that he takes everywhere round the world with him, right?
Now, I don't have a private security team.
Or, maybe I do, and that man over there who shouted out,
"Business rates," he's the head of it.
And if he answers, fast, "Business rates," like that,
that's a signal to me that there's nothing to worry about in the room.
And then, when I press him further,
he has a succession of different codenames,
all of which alert me to different potential problems.
And if he says Reginald, like you with Reginald,
that is a signal to me that there have been some threats online.
So...
They're coming at me, Dave Chappelle's security guards, they don't know who I am,
they don't know that I'm the Times newspaper's world's greatest living
stand-up, they don't know that, a lot of people don't, as I say.
They just see a little grey, fat old man calling Dave Chappelle a wanker.
They're American. They don't know what that is.
They think it's some kind of British regional biscuit, or something.
Then they hear me say that Dave Chappelle is making up all
lies about me on stage, which to be fair, does sound like the kind
of thing a deranged, paranoid stalker would say, doesn't it?
So they ran at me, so what I did was, I ran away, up the stairs, out
of the Leicester Square Theatre with a 150 quid
ticket for an unseen Dave Chappelle show burning a hole in my pocket.
I ran up to Leicester Place, north of Leicester Square, I ran
across there, I hid behind a kind of electricity substation.
They came out, Dave Chappelle's security guards, they ran down
towards Leicester Square, I ran up north to Lyle Street,
round the side of the Prince Charles Cinema, they saw me,
they ran up there, up into Chinatown,
but I hid behind a kind of curtain outside a gay bar.
Yeah, they're trained professionals, but I've got local knowledge, like the Taliban, right?
I ran west, along Lyle Street, over Wardour Street,
down the alleyway by the side of the Blue Post, over Shaftsbury Avenue.
I was up in Soho now, running around.
Dave Chappelle's security guards, they're still down in Chinatown,
asking people if they've seen a bloke called Lee. They're fucked! Right?
Then...
I ran into this little alleyway, Walker's Court, used to be all
sex shops in the '80s, and I tucked myself into a doorway there to hide.
And I'm shivering and I'm shaking and I'm paranoid
and I'm afraid and then,
I realise I'm in the doorway of what in 1979 was
the entrance to the Comic Strip club, where Alexei Sayle
and all that crowd changed British stand-up forever.
And when I used to play that gig, in 1989, I did it,
it was booked by Eddie Izzard, right?
And I remember, at half time,
we used to have to share our dressing room with the male
strippers from the Raymond Revuebar next door,
who were appearing in a show called Carnival of Erotica,
which was neither of those things.
And they used to come in at half time, the male strippers, and
they would sit down, naked, in their chairs,
making small talk with us and masturbating, right?
But they weren't trying to masturbate to climax,
they were just trying to keep their penises sort of respectably
tumescent for when they went back on. They didn't actually want them to be erect,
cos it's illegal to show an erection on a British stage and the
legal definition of an erection, if you're interested, is 45 degrees.
Now...
Personally, I think that's too ambitious a target.
And one of the things I was looking forward to when we finally left
the EU was getting rid of all this stupid red tape and regulations.
And I know that was one of Jacob Rees-Mogg's main
interests in supporting the project.
But I was 20 years old, right?
I was sitting backstage in a club in Soho, looking at naked men,
sitting in chairs, masturbating.
It was everything my gran had warned me showbiz would be.
It was chair-based activity of the very worst... kind.
And as I stood there in that doorway, drunk, shivering,
shaking, afraid,
I remembered all the people I used to do that gig with 33 years ago,
all the comics that I thought were great and all forgotten now, all
dead or given up, or disappeared, you know,
they're the real greats to me.
Paul Ramon and Johnny Immaterial, Malcolm Hardy,
Shelagh Martin, you know, and they're the greats, not...
These lists of the 100 best comics of all time, everyone in those
lists, they're just sell-outs, all of them,
and I'm in some of them and I don't even know why,
because all the people I think are any good are dead
and I think if I was any good, I'd be dead and I felt...
I felt this hand on my shoulder, and I thought, "Well, this is it. This is payback time."
And I spun round and it was one of Dave Chappelle's security guards.
And he said, "Stewart Lee?" I said, "Yeah. Do you know my act?"
And he said, "No, but I've read about it on Netflix."
"It sounds amazing, man.
"All Dave does every night is ridicule the transgender community, but...
"But sharks falling out of the sky...
"How do you even do that in a tight seven-minute club showcase?"
I said, "I don't. It was a mistake." He went, "What?!
"When you shouted out in that show, we should have got you,
"broken both your arms, punched your face into a pulp
"and put you in a stretcher to the hospital.
"But you know what, son? I'm going to let you leave this place
"and I'm going to give you a chance to make something of your life,
"if you promise me when you leave here,
"you will work out how to do your act as it's described on Netflix."
I thought, "A deal's a deal," right?
So I went away, York, and I Googled the phrase, "Reports of sharks
"falling from the skies are on the rise again
"and no-one on the Eastern Seaboard is safe,"
and it turned out, that is
a description of a modern American horror film called Sharknado,
in which a tornado snatches up loads of sharks out of the sea
and drops them on a city, on dry land, and they kill loads of people.
And for some reason,
that's spent two years as the description of me on Netflix.
And they wouldn't do anything about changing it.
Right? I don't know if the same was true in reverse.
I don't know if on the Sharknado page,
there's a picture of a surfer's head being bitten off and underneath,
it says, "More deadpan humour...
"..from Britain's master of the multiple call-back ending."
That's right, that's what this is, isn't it? Yeah. So...
So I carried on looking into it
and I found out a lot of these American horror films from now,
they're based on British horror stories from the '20s
and '30s, people like Arthur Machen, or MR James, you know,
The Birds, that's an early example, based on a Daphne du Maurier
novel and Sharknado turned out to be no exception.
That was based on British source material as well.
In fact, in 1959, when he was appearing on Broadway,
in Beyond The Fringe, Alan Bennett actually...
He supplemented his income by writing horror
fiction for the last of the American pulp magazines
and I can't give you sharks falling down onto a stand-up
set in York tonight, but what I can do,
I'm going to finish this hour by just reading to you
briefly from Alan Bennett's Sharknado.
"Nora...
"..watched the gathering breeze blow the dandelions bare
"in the front garden,
"as she anxiously awaited the grocery.
"It would ensure Colin's
"70th birthday celebrations were well stocked
"with wines, cheeses and nibbles.
"Friends and relations had been summoned to the neat semi
"and Nora had planned every moment of the event in meticulous detail,
"from the admittedly rather squeezed seating plan.
"Some guests were going to have to eat their dinners
"on the kitchen sideboard.
"To the songs and speeches that would follow Colin's birthday meal,
"there was only one blot on the horizon."
OK, right, there should be a big laugh there, normally, so...
I don't really know what's happened,
but it suggests to me no-one's really followed the...
Do you want me to carry on doing the voice,
or shall I just get through it and we can...?
Do the voice, OK. No, it's up to you, whatever you...
There's only one... "A strangely garbled local news report
"suggesting that huge and ferocious sea creatures..."
Yes, well, that should have been earlier because it's obvious what it is, I think.
"..were raining down onto the streets of Barnsley.
"But Barnsley were 30 mile away, at least,
"across the moor.
"And the weather outside Nora's front window seemed normal enough for the time of year.
"Colin and Nora's oldest friends, Alan and Mildred,
"had already arrived and were settled down in the kitchen
"sampling some of Nora's homemade sausage rolls,
"a course of action Colin thought displayed an unattractive
"streak of impatience.
"In the sitting room, Nora nervously tuned in the radio.
"Apparently, the falling sea creatures had been identified
"as sharks.
"And the mysterious purple cloud containing them
"was now heading towards Nora and Colin's hometown of Dewsbury.
"Yorkshire folk were warned to stay in their homes
"and not to go outside, not even to fetch clean washing off the line.
"Or to chase a gypsy away from a tree.
"Nora looked back into the open plan kitchen-diner.
"The sideboard at which Alan and Mildred were munching the nibbles
"was situated in what suddenly seemed a somewhat perilous position,
"directly beneath the rather flimsy-looking glass skylight.
"Nora nudged Colin, gestured towards it and whispered to him
"quietly, so as not to alarm their guests,
"'Colin, reports of sharks falling from the skies
"'are on the rise again.
"'And no-one eating on the sideboard is safe.'"
"But it was too late.
"The first of the sharks crashed without warning,
"through the shattering window and shards of glass embedded themselves
"in the ham and tomato quiche.
"Nora looked up from the ruined celebration flan.
"She saw the falling shark rolling around on the Axminster,
"a floral design, which they had put down when the extension was built.
"Mildred's head was trapped between its jaws.
"Alan tried in vain to wrestle her free, but succeeded only
"in severing his wife's head from her spasming body.
"Without even a moment to grieve, Alan found himself in mortal
"combat with the displaced sea creature, its massive tail
"thrashing around the room, sending sausage rolls
"and vol-au-vents flying,
"many of which were crushed into the carpet, creating stains,
"which would be difficult to remove at a later date,
"even for Nora, who had worked in the dry-cleaner's... after the dentist's.
"Other guests had arrived in the front garden, which was now awash
"with dozens of falling sharks, their huge jaws making mincemeat
"of the fleeing pensioners, as the newly tarmacked driveway
"foamed with blood, the garden path slippery with disgorged human intestines.
"Two spleens, for example, and a number of pancreases.
"It was then that a crestfallen Nora had to admit the facts.
"Colin's 70th birthday party was not going to go quite as she had planned."
Erving Goffman would have liked that.
♪ I got some John Coltrane on the stereo, baby
♪ Make it feel all right
♪ I got some fine wine in the freezer, mama
♪ I know what you like
♪ Oh, we gonna take it, turn it, set it down
♪ We gonna learn about love on a three ply rug
♪ My baby, gonna be all right... ♪