Stewart Lee: Basic Lee, Chelmsford Theatre

This was a performance I’d been looking forward to for some time. On the night, we were at the back in the right-hand corner of the house, which turned out to be a double blessing. For one, it meant we had an aisle seat, which made getting out and topping up on drinks easier; secondly, it meant the formidable Stewart Lee couldn’t pick on us. My heart went out to the couple of stragglers who turned up late and incurred his wrath. Mind you, if you dare turn up late to a Stewart Lee gig, you’re playing with fire and deserve to get burned. He has a whole routine dedicated to latecomers and likes to emphasise the extent to which they’ve ruined his evening.

We were treated to his standard opening, which is currently becoming a catchphrase of sorts. It’s always the same line, but with the name of a random celebrity inserted each time. Tonight, he opened as follows:

“I know what you’re thinking: William Shatner’s let himself go”.

Next week, it could be K. D. Lang. But he has been known to subvert audience expectations entirely. On one notable occasion, it was:

“I know what you’re thinking: Stewart Lee’s let himself go”!

The title of the show, Basic Lee, is suggestive of an artist returning to his creative roots. The rudiments of comedy, as it were. There were no lofty backdrops. Just one man, a mic, and a wooden stool – and only the latter because he’d sustained an ankle injury a couple of months prior.

He then skirted various hot-button topics with aplomb. From Brexit to J. K. Rowling and Prince Andrew. He sure does love to nudge a hornets’ nest. All the while, the audience took collective deep breaths and asked themselves, Is he really going to go there? And if so, how bad is it going to be? After all, he’s played Edinburgh in the past and character-assassinated William Wallace before an audience of stereotypically beefy clansmen who seemed ready to burst out of their chairs at any minute and throttle him. But even if he does go there, we know he’ll always win us over, and that’s no easy task.

He looked well on the night, despite his ankle injury, and his performance was surprisingly supercharged. Indeed, his punchlines were uncharacteristically rapid-fire, as if he’d downed a six-pack of Red Bull beforehand. The first half flew by in a nanosecond, and no one was more alert to the fact than the man himself:

“I prefer Stewart Lee when it doesn’t go to plan!”

This was a dig at the audience, of course, because he’s always incisive, knows what we’re thinking, and likes to sting us every time.

Many of his peers regard Stewart Lee as one of comedy’s greats and consider him one of their favourites, if not the favourite. But he’s very much an acquired taste. A slow burn. You can’t just jump in at the deep end and expect to get him from scratch. You’ve got to go with the flow, feel his energy, be one with Stewart Lee! Cue pretentious diatribe. But there’s a great deal of truth in this. Sitting down to an episode of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, or one of his standup shows, is a world apart from a re-watch of Live at the Apollo. There’s none of the tab A, slot B approach. That just isn’t how he rolls, which is why you’ll never see him appear on a panel show. Well, apart from that one infamous episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats, never to be repeated. Nowadays, his sets are more like masterclasses in the craft. Postmodern, even. He breaks the fourth wall and everything! Which brings us nicely to the second half of his set. Here, he began a lengthy decimation of Fleabag. His chief complaint being how this particular comedy-drama received undue accolades for breaking said fourth wall when he’d already been doing it for years!

He then turned the gun on his male fans. Namely, those pseudo-intellectual types who bore their uninitiated wives and girlfriends beforehand about the supposed esotericism of Stewart Lee:

“Oh, no, you can’t just switch on and expect to get him,” he mimicked in his best trainspotter voice. “He’s not like the comedy you watch. His routines are more like philosophy. Like jazz. Or reading a novel. I watch him in bed at night, laugh to myself, and say things like, ‘He's so intelligent, and so am I because I'm laughing at him’.”

There was nothing I could do at this point other than bury my face in my hands – I, too, having patronised my partner in this exact manner prior to the gig. Meanwhile, my other half laughed hysterically in triumph. Up until that point, I’d naively considered myself a veteran Stewart Lee viewer. My subsequent review has therefore been written with the safety firmly on!

In the foyer afterwards, my other half took great pleasure in revealing to him that his routine had basically been us, word for word.

"Yes, I know,” he replied stoically. “I was in your house, spying on you."

After the show, he took the trouble to sign everyone’s merch (all of it, bless him) and mingle with his fans. He always does this, and it’s very good of him. It turns out the creature we see foaming at the mouth and having a meltdown onstage is very different to the individual we encounter offstage. In reality, he’s courteous, gracious, and very humble. Anyone might think his performance onstage is, well … a performance! Who’d have thought?


Thursday 18th April 2024 7.30pm
Basic Lee - St. George's Hall, Bradford
Monday 22nd April 2024 7.30pm SOLD OUT
Basic Lee - The Lowry , Salford

For further northern your dates in 2025 visit:
https://www.stewartlee.co.uk/live-dates/