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How I Escaped My Certain Fate
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Experience how it feels to be the subject of a blasphemy prosecution! Find out why 'wool' is a funny word! See how jokes work, their inner mechanisms revealed, before your astonished face! In 2001, after over a decade in the business, Stewart Lee quit stand-up, disillusioned and drained, and went off to direct a loss-making opera about Jerry Springer. "How I Escaped My Certain Fate" details his return to live performance, and the journey that took him from an early retirement to his position as the most critically acclaimed stand-up in Britain. Here is Stewart Lee's own account of his remarkable comeback, told through transcripts of the three legendary full-length shows that sealed his reputation. Astonishingly frank and detailed in-depth notes reveal the inspiration and inner workings of his act. With unprecedented access to a leading comedian's creative process, this book tell us just what it was like to write these shows, develop the performance and take them on tour. "How I Escaped My Certain Fate" is everything we have come to expect from Stewart Lee: fiercely intelligent, unsparingly honest and very funny.
Experience how it feels to be the subject of a blasphemy prosecution! Find out why 'wool' is a funny word! See how jokes work, their inner mechanisms revealed, before your astonished face! In 2001, after over a decade in the business, Stewart Lee quit stand-up, disillusioned and drained, and went off to direct a loss-making opera about Jerry Springer. "How I Escaped My Certain Fate" details his return to live performance, and the journey that took him from an early retirement to his position as the most critically acclaimed stand-up in Britain. Here is Stewart Lee's own account of his remarkable comeback, told through transcripts of the three legendary full-length shows that sealed his reputation. Astonishingly frank and detailed in-depth notes reveal the inspiration and inner workings of his act. With unprecedented access to a leading comedian's creative process, this book tell us just what it was like to write these shows, develop the performance and take them on tour. "How I Escaped My Certain Fate" is everything we have come to expect from Stewart Lee: fiercely intelligent, unsparingly honest and very funny.
394 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
176 people are currently reading
2758 people want to read
About the author
Stewart Lee
35 books235 followersFrom Wikipedia (accessed Oct 2010):
Stewart Lee (born 5 April 1968, Wellington, Shropshire) is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director known for being one half of the 1990s comedy duo Lee and Herring, and for co-writing and directing the critically-acclaimed and controversial stage show Jerry Springer - The Opera. In a review of the comedy of the previous decade, a 2009 article in The Times referred to Lee as "the comedian's comedian, and for good reason" and named him "face of the decade".
Lee has been described as "Unflinching in his scathing satire, unapologetic in his liberal, middle-class, highbrow appeal, and fiercely intelligent, his comedy certainly does not pander to the masses". His stand-up features frequent use of "repetition, call-backs, nonchalant delivery and deconstruction".
Stewart Lee (born 5 April 1968, Wellington, Shropshire) is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director known for being one half of the 1990s comedy duo Lee and Herring, and for co-writing and directing the critically-acclaimed and controversial stage show Jerry Springer - The Opera. In a review of the comedy of the previous decade, a 2009 article in The Times referred to Lee as "the comedian's comedian, and for good reason" and named him "face of the decade".
Lee has been described as "Unflinching in his scathing satire, unapologetic in his liberal, middle-class, highbrow appeal, and fiercely intelligent, his comedy certainly does not pander to the masses". His stand-up features frequent use of "repetition, call-backs, nonchalant delivery and deconstruction".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 244 reviews
January 15, 2015
The Goodreads Censorship Fiasco of 2013 has got a lot of people considering works by Adolph Hitler, convicted sex offenders, and flagrant P2P artists. I have found myself repeatedly thinking of a particular routine from 90s stand-up comedian Stewart Lee.
If you don't know Lee, his style is not easy to demonstrate through quotation. His material relies on carefully-layered silences and repetitions, tiny nuances of expression, and sequences that derive their humour from the cumulative probing of audience expectations. In other words, there are no one-liners or identifiable ‘jokes’, and consequently a lot of people find him irritating and tedious. I love him. I urge you to listen to a couple examples of his style, such as this routine about Braveheart daringly performed in Glasgow, or maybe this one on Osama bin Laden.
Having made a huge contribution to the British alternative comedy boom in the early 90s, Stew kind of dropped off the radar a bit, until in 2005 he suddenly hit the headlines again in a massive way. He had co-written a brilliant piece with composer Richard Thomas called Jerry Springer: The Opera, which had just finished a West End run and been filmed for broadcast on the BBC. A right-wing Christian pressure group called Christian Voice decided to use the planned broadcast to drum up some public attention, based on the fact that the show involved a lot of swearing and featured a sequence in which Jesus appears in a nappy.
Elaborate protests were staged, 55,500 people complained, BBC executives were advised to go into hiding, and theatres everywhere cancelled their plans to stage the show on tour. Stewart and Richard Thomas lost a lot of money. The whole thing briefly became something of a public scandal, and plans were made to prosecute Stew and Richard under old-but-still-on-the-books blasphemy laws.
It was at this point that Stew went on tour again with a show ironically named '90s Comedian. He was not in a happy place. But his response to being pursued for blasphemy and having his work pulled from theatres around the country was rather heartwarming, even if it shocked a lot of people who saw the show: he built a long and scatologically detailed routine around a drunken, nauseous encounter with Jesus Christ. In the spirit of the Goodreads regulations I will quote from the relevant transcript, taken from a Cardiff gig in 2006:
But then I felt the sick rising in me again, and I thought, ‘What am I supposed to do now?’ […] And then I opened my eyes and I looked down, and He was there again, Jesus, on my right. But this time He had His back to me and He was doing a kind of handstand by the sink. And his raiment had slipped down, it looked like a kind of third-length, floral print hospital gown. And He had His right hand on the floor to, to balance Him upside-down, and with His left hand He was using the fingers to kind of splay open His anus. As if what He…As if what He wanted was for me to vomit into the gaping anus of Christ.
[off-mic, shouting] And don't imagine, Cardiff, that I come here and talk about this lightly, OK? I thought about it, I asked around – well, I know it's a bit much but I asked around, I said to – oh look, I asked Tony Law, he's a Canadian stand-up comic, he's the most reasonable man I know, I said to him, ‘Tony, do you honestly think I can go round the country in front of people and use the phrase, “I vomited into the gaping anus of Christ”?’ And he said, ‘Well, possibly, if it's in context. But,’ he said, ‘you won't be able to use it as the title of a live DVD.’ I said, ‘I'm not going to do that, Tony, I'm not insane.’
But imagine this situation, it is impossible. There is no right way out of it. I bent down, I said to Jesus, ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ And He said to me, ‘Look, you're going to be taken to court for blasphemy for doing nothing, I feel like I owe you one, knock yourself out.’ So against my better judgement, 'cause He told me to, I did it. I vomited into the gaping anus of Christ till the gaping anus of Christ was overflowing with my sick. I did that. Are you happy now?
Quoting this out of context is rather unfair, especially since this section is followed by a beautiful and funny exploration of why offending people in this way is sometimes absolutely necessary. Although, as I said, quite a few reviewers were shocked by '90s Comedian and didn't really understand it, the show was in general hailed as a small masterpiece and it relaunched Stew's career.
This book, which is built around transcripts of this and his other two big shows of the 2000s, transcends its genre by virtue of the enormously thoughtful footnotes and introductions and appendices discussing how the bits were written and performed and the thought processes behind them. On the genesis of the vomit/Christ sequence, Lee says a lot of interesting things about how he wanted to react to the attempted censorship of his material:
Was it possible to write something which, when reduced to its content alone, would be impossibly offensive, featuring as it did a urine-and-vomit-fuelled encounter between a drunk comedian and a holy figure in a cramped toilet, and yet to write and perform it in such a way that it became tender, moving and meaningful over and above the supposed taboo nature of its content alone? […] In short, if you felt our careful, theologically rigorous and kind-hearted opera was blasphemous, well, try this on for size, you twats, and – you know what? – I will still win on points. I will make meaningful religious art out of toilet filth, just to beat you.
This combination of, on the one hand, a big fuck-you, and on the other a thoughtful argument about rights and responsibilities, is something I see a lot of reviewers going for here as well (and often pulling it off brilliantly). It's an approach I like very much, and if it gives me an excuse to mention this magnificent book – a key text in the field – then so much the better.
August 3, 2011
I did a few gigs with Stewart Lee in my early stand-up days and, although I was only on nodding terms with him, I was repelled slightly by what I perceived as a haughty, intellectual superiority complex which manifested itself in dense, sluggish and deeply unfunny routines. I was not alone in finding him impenetrable.
That was then. Watching him now, I see a comedian at the height of his powers, a man who has stuck to his guns whilst improving out of sight as a purveyor of comedy gold. He uses repetition better than anyone currently working and his ability to play with a subject, to decorate it with daring, acute observations, imbue it with magical pauses and channel it all through a wonderfully dour stage persona, makes him a joy to behold.
This book does full justice to his intellect and originality. He never wastes a word, tackles subjects unflinchingly and manages to be self-critical without a hint of false humility. He repeats verbatim some of his routines, picking them (and himself) apart in often wistful but never less than fully self-aware footnotes, to illustrate the madness of his chosen profession and his esoteric take on it.
Highly recommended.
That was then. Watching him now, I see a comedian at the height of his powers, a man who has stuck to his guns whilst improving out of sight as a purveyor of comedy gold. He uses repetition better than anyone currently working and his ability to play with a subject, to decorate it with daring, acute observations, imbue it with magical pauses and channel it all through a wonderfully dour stage persona, makes him a joy to behold.
This book does full justice to his intellect and originality. He never wastes a word, tackles subjects unflinchingly and manages to be self-critical without a hint of false humility. He repeats verbatim some of his routines, picking them (and himself) apart in often wistful but never less than fully self-aware footnotes, to illustrate the madness of his chosen profession and his esoteric take on it.
Highly recommended.
January 20, 2021
A friend of mine put me onto Stewart Lee. I’d never heard of him before, and then I watched some of his material on YouTube. I wanted to tell people that they should watch him too. I really liked his stuff, but as I started to explain to people what he did, I wasn’t sure I was convincing them that it was, actually, something they might enjoy.
This is going to sound much more pretentious than I think his stuff actually is – but what he does is to deconstruct humour and to put the audience in an odd situation where they are not entirely sure if they should be laughing, but also feel they should be questioning what is the point of laughing at a comedian in the first place. This isn’t totally true, but it is near enough. In this book he says a couple of times that he isn’t necessarily interested in having people laughing all of the time during his shows. There are times when I think it would probably be hard to laugh.
And all of this makes him sound like he isn’t in the least bit funny – except, there are times when I have laughed harder at him than I have laughed in years. I don’t think, in fact, I'm nearly certain what he does should work nearly as well as it does. As someone said about him in the Guardian, his shows are a bit like a magic act where the magician tells you how they are doing the trick – it really, really shouldn’t work. And yet, it does.
I don’t want to spoil any of this if you are thinking of reading it – the book is a cross between an autobiography and the script to some of his live shows. He interrupts the scripts so as to explain what he is doing in that part of the show or why he thought the joke he is saying is funny. Like I said, none of this should really work – and yet, it really does.
This is going to sound much more pretentious than I think his stuff actually is – but what he does is to deconstruct humour and to put the audience in an odd situation where they are not entirely sure if they should be laughing, but also feel they should be questioning what is the point of laughing at a comedian in the first place. This isn’t totally true, but it is near enough. In this book he says a couple of times that he isn’t necessarily interested in having people laughing all of the time during his shows. There are times when I think it would probably be hard to laugh.
And all of this makes him sound like he isn’t in the least bit funny – except, there are times when I have laughed harder at him than I have laughed in years. I don’t think, in fact, I'm nearly certain what he does should work nearly as well as it does. As someone said about him in the Guardian, his shows are a bit like a magic act where the magician tells you how they are doing the trick – it really, really shouldn’t work. And yet, it does.
I don’t want to spoil any of this if you are thinking of reading it – the book is a cross between an autobiography and the script to some of his live shows. He interrupts the scripts so as to explain what he is doing in that part of the show or why he thought the joke he is saying is funny. Like I said, none of this should really work – and yet, it really does.
September 17, 2017
In a previous life, I was a comedian. I told jokes to crowds of people for (occasionally) money and (more often) beer. During my brief career I read many comedy how-tos, and numerous biographies of performers like Richard Pryor (Pryor Convictions) and Steve Martin (Born Standing up).
How I escaped My Certain Fate is the best book on comedy, or the life of a comedian, that I have read, written by a man who is in my opinion one of the best and most interesting voices in contemporary stand-up.
Stewart Lee's book is both hilarious and genuinely insightful, and is a book of two parts. Lee firstly tells the story of his comedy career, its near death and the eventual resuscitation that allowed him to become the performer he is now- a scathing, fierce and hilarious performer at the top of his industry, with several seasons of his own show. This story is entertaining and told with flair, but is only part of the book.
Beyond his own personal story Lee includes the full scripts for three of his critically acclaimed shows, and breaks them down into what is effectively the story of their creation combined with a penetrating dissection of what worked, what didn't and why. In doing this Lee gives readers a unique insight into the gargantuan amount of artistic work that goes into creating a stand-up stage show, and the thought processes of a comedian engaged in such a task.
If you've ever wondered how comedians do what they do, how they come up with their ideas, and how they work them into a seamless hour of entertainment then read this book. Lee pulls the curtain back, points out the cogs in the machine, and gives you an hilarious demonstration of how they all work together.
How I escaped My Certain Fate is funny, scathing, insightful, filled with reflection, analysis of what makes comedy work or fail and more. Stewart Lee writes in an hilarious, flowing, page turning style and I found myself up late with this one, and laughing out loud on the tram too. If you want to perform stand up, used to perform stand up, or are interested in the world of stand up you must read this book- it's worth ten hackneyed how-to guides and self serving comic memoirs. This is comedy as art, damned funny art.
How I escaped My Certain Fate is the best book on comedy, or the life of a comedian, that I have read, written by a man who is in my opinion one of the best and most interesting voices in contemporary stand-up.
Stewart Lee's book is both hilarious and genuinely insightful, and is a book of two parts. Lee firstly tells the story of his comedy career, its near death and the eventual resuscitation that allowed him to become the performer he is now- a scathing, fierce and hilarious performer at the top of his industry, with several seasons of his own show. This story is entertaining and told with flair, but is only part of the book.
Beyond his own personal story Lee includes the full scripts for three of his critically acclaimed shows, and breaks them down into what is effectively the story of their creation combined with a penetrating dissection of what worked, what didn't and why. In doing this Lee gives readers a unique insight into the gargantuan amount of artistic work that goes into creating a stand-up stage show, and the thought processes of a comedian engaged in such a task.
If you've ever wondered how comedians do what they do, how they come up with their ideas, and how they work them into a seamless hour of entertainment then read this book. Lee pulls the curtain back, points out the cogs in the machine, and gives you an hilarious demonstration of how they all work together.
How I escaped My Certain Fate is funny, scathing, insightful, filled with reflection, analysis of what makes comedy work or fail and more. Stewart Lee writes in an hilarious, flowing, page turning style and I found myself up late with this one, and laughing out loud on the tram too. If you want to perform stand up, used to perform stand up, or are interested in the world of stand up you must read this book- it's worth ten hackneyed how-to guides and self serving comic memoirs. This is comedy as art, damned funny art.
July 30, 2010
A truly great insight into the life of a stand up, told by alternative national treasure Stewart Lee. The lengthy transcripts of stand up routines (complete with extensive footnotes) might not be everybody's cup of, particularly if you haven't heard or seen the routines performed, but the level of analysis of the comedian's craft, replete with Lee's trademark idealism masquerading as cynicism, makes for a challenging and original read. Best accompanied by Youtube footage of his annihilation of the 'Celebrity Hardback' genre.
August 30, 2011
I liked a lot about this book, but I think its failure as a funny book is testament to Lee's success as a comic. I've seen him live twice - both times I laughed the whole way through, and both of the transcripts appear in this book. I also love his television program.
In the book, Lee says that the fact that he is capable of writing this book means that in some ways be must be a failure as a comic. For him, comedy is about performance - it's not just about words and shouldn't translate easily onto the page. And he's right. This book did not make me laugh. Lee's tone, delivery and stage presence are all completely absent from it. Of course, the content is erudite and witty, but it's not side-splittingly hilarious, which it is on stage. Judging him by his own terms, I would say that this makes him even more of a success of a comic, which is, after all, what he's interested in.
That's not to say the book isn't enjoyable or witty or intelligent. It is all of those things. And the footnotes give you a fascinating insight into what being a stand-up comic is like, and the processes that go in to writing a routine. I actually enjoyed the footnotes and the chapters between the standup transcripts much more than the transcripts themselves.
So for the book I give him 3 stars, but his standup always gets 5.
In the book, Lee says that the fact that he is capable of writing this book means that in some ways be must be a failure as a comic. For him, comedy is about performance - it's not just about words and shouldn't translate easily onto the page. And he's right. This book did not make me laugh. Lee's tone, delivery and stage presence are all completely absent from it. Of course, the content is erudite and witty, but it's not side-splittingly hilarious, which it is on stage. Judging him by his own terms, I would say that this makes him even more of a success of a comic, which is, after all, what he's interested in.
That's not to say the book isn't enjoyable or witty or intelligent. It is all of those things. And the footnotes give you a fascinating insight into what being a stand-up comic is like, and the processes that go in to writing a routine. I actually enjoyed the footnotes and the chapters between the standup transcripts much more than the transcripts themselves.
So for the book I give him 3 stars, but his standup always gets 5.
September 24, 2014
Comedians’ memoirs are usually lamentable tales of mein-kampf riddled with humour that clunks on the page, excepting this metafictional gag artist who is one of the rare stage performers to take the postmodern self-reference common in sitcoms and other TV comedies (and literature) and indulge in playful audience-baiting antics. This is part-memoir, part-annotated transcript of his stand-up routines, with more appeal to his cult fans due to the career-long detail (will Americans find the constant namedropping of obscure comedian pals tiresome?), but pleasurable for those interested in stand-up as an artform. Read Warwick’s review for a better review. (Warwick has let himself go).
June 6, 2011
Much as I like to approach a book with an open mind, it was impossible in this case. I would class Stewart Lee as something approaching a genius – certainly the closest to it in my experience of stand-up comedy – so high expectations were somewhat inevitable.
Lee’s intention is to explain the workings of his comedy as much as possible, an endeavour that ends up being rather meta considering the fact that he sees his stand-up in itself as an extended attempt to ‘pull back the curtain’ on the nature of comedy. As a result the book’s structure is rather odd – essentially three comprehensively annotated transcripts of his most successful stand-up routines, set in context by some short autobiographical introductions.
Somehow this works very well, mostly due to the fact that each show is clearly very influenced by Lee’s preceding experiences. It’s also fascinating to see the seriousness with which Lee tackles each show: the way he searches for a suitable structure, what he is attempting to achieve with each strand of his routine, how he might have been influenced by other comedians.
Perhaps most interesting, at least for me, is the evolution of what Lee calls his ‘clown’ – his comic persona. His quiet, rambling tone and penchant for repetition to the point of absurdity is probably the most polarising aspect of Lee’s act, and it’s intriguing to think that it’s largely based on a generic old lady and a taxi driver he once met who couldn’t quite get to his punchline. He seems happy to acknowledge this divisive facet of his persona, and his commentary on his life and scripts often teeters mischievously between smug preening and rueful self awareness.
On one level, the fundamental question that will be asked about this book is: is it funny? Well, yes, if you find Lee funny. Though probably not as funny as the live shows. More important is it’s analysis of why it is funny, and how this has been achieved. In essence it is a smart, accessible book about writing, the creative process and comedy, and is highly recommended.
Lee’s intention is to explain the workings of his comedy as much as possible, an endeavour that ends up being rather meta considering the fact that he sees his stand-up in itself as an extended attempt to ‘pull back the curtain’ on the nature of comedy. As a result the book’s structure is rather odd – essentially three comprehensively annotated transcripts of his most successful stand-up routines, set in context by some short autobiographical introductions.
Somehow this works very well, mostly due to the fact that each show is clearly very influenced by Lee’s preceding experiences. It’s also fascinating to see the seriousness with which Lee tackles each show: the way he searches for a suitable structure, what he is attempting to achieve with each strand of his routine, how he might have been influenced by other comedians.
Perhaps most interesting, at least for me, is the evolution of what Lee calls his ‘clown’ – his comic persona. His quiet, rambling tone and penchant for repetition to the point of absurdity is probably the most polarising aspect of Lee’s act, and it’s intriguing to think that it’s largely based on a generic old lady and a taxi driver he once met who couldn’t quite get to his punchline. He seems happy to acknowledge this divisive facet of his persona, and his commentary on his life and scripts often teeters mischievously between smug preening and rueful self awareness.
On one level, the fundamental question that will be asked about this book is: is it funny? Well, yes, if you find Lee funny. Though probably not as funny as the live shows. More important is it’s analysis of why it is funny, and how this has been achieved. In essence it is a smart, accessible book about writing, the creative process and comedy, and is highly recommended.
July 21, 2017
Stewart Lee's 2008 stand up comedy routine (one of three of his own shows he dissects and provides transcripts of in the book), is called "41st Best Stand Up Ever", prompted by Lee's bemusement at being placed so high in a TV all-time comedian chart. As Lee himself points out, such shows are just cheap screen time-eaters constructed of archive clips and talking heads prostituting themselves out of anything but a sacred feel for what they're intoning about. He also points out that the order of the list is shaped by the necessity of having the rude comics on after the 9pm watershed, hence inflating their position, plus they reflect the hot current performer who would almost certainly have disappeared from sight within two years. For this is what Stewart Lee, my personal Number 1 Best Stand Up Ever does; with his comedy and with this book, he deconstructs his act, comedy and himself.
Now I realise many of you, especially Americans may not be familiar with Stewart Lee. He is very British and very niche. Half of the chapters are transcripts of three of his live acts in the Noughties. I'm already familiar with them, so they lose a bit set down on the page in terms of their entertainment. Readers can familiarise themselves with the acts as they are on YouTube, maybe before you read, or after, or even during. But this book is so much more than just reading some comedy scripts and their genesis.
The book starts at Lee's disillusion with stand up during the early part of the new century. Psychologically and financially flayed raw by the furore surrounding the "Jerry Springer - The Musical" which he partly co-wrote but was fully swept up in the cries for prosecution under Britain's superannuated blasphemy laws. In one of the appendices Lee gives a trenchant critique of the art form of musical theatre, reflected in the early chapters by his own disbelief that he ended up being part responsible for possibly the most infamous one. A wounded Lee retires to lick his wounds and gradually the flame to return to stand up flickers back to life. But he is striving for a purity of the experience and the book takes off from this point. If Lee can at times make his audience uncomfortable, it is nothing that he himself isn't also feeling towards himself.
We see the serendipitous events in his life that he is able to weave into thematic material. Those he tweaks for comic/artistic purposes and those he leaves untouched. One can marvel at the connections he finds to link them up. But he goes so much further. This book is a supreme study in the use of language. Lee says he tells very few jokes. What he does is pitch a stage character to the audience. Fully conscious of how to bring them along with him, how to alienate them. He plots his routine like a musical score and everything revolves around the telling. The points that he challenges the audience. The points that he lulls them in. The points when he deliberately keeps them at arms length. Then points where he flatters them, or divides them against themselves. Even the points where he is free to extemporise to overcome his confessed boredom at performing the same routine over and over again night after night. He considers and structures the minutiae of the flows in power and status relationships between his stage persona and the audience. He is plucking the stringed instrument of our emotions like a virtuoso.
How does this offer insight to a novelist? Through the crafting of his act. Through the precision of words chosen, of inflections and sounds. Every word of his routines, even to the 'ums' and 'ers' are deliberately laid down. But they look so conversational and natural that it is an art. And art is a key word in this book. Lee considers the mass commercial entertainment of any art form that is concerned with audience numbers which it then panders to reaffirming their preconceptions and values. And then there is awkward, challenging, subversive art that demands the audience to work. Lee is ambivalent at different times as to whether comedy is high art, but his is certainly literary; not through his references and allusions, but through his appreciation of language. He also offers his seeking out of the traditional comic forms of the Bouffon in France and the shaman-clowns of Pueblo native Americans. Their concern with mocking established communal values as a way of both reaffirming them and providing the possibility of what lies beyond such conformity. Lee comes away with the notion of a sacred, ritualistic space on stage and draws a chalk circle around himself in one of his acts, as talismanic protection before the crowd. It's that attention to detail, that complete and wholesale hallowing of his craft that makes Lee top of the contemporary comedy tree.
If I have a criticism, it's that he doesn't quite show us all his art. While the material is faithfully excavated for its sources, I wish he would relate the process of the writing itself. Since every word is honed, it might have been interesting to see early drafts of lines. Words rejected, or cuts made for rhythm purposes. He also sells himself short I feel, by not taking us into the process by which he commits his act to memory, working out the gestures and the movements across the stage. As writers, we read in public book in hand. Imaging having to learn a whole hour's worth of your own text in order to be able to deliver it word-perfect from memory to an audience. Now that makes it art.
I urge you to read this book, but not necessarily for the laughs.
Now I realise many of you, especially Americans may not be familiar with Stewart Lee. He is very British and very niche. Half of the chapters are transcripts of three of his live acts in the Noughties. I'm already familiar with them, so they lose a bit set down on the page in terms of their entertainment. Readers can familiarise themselves with the acts as they are on YouTube, maybe before you read, or after, or even during. But this book is so much more than just reading some comedy scripts and their genesis.
The book starts at Lee's disillusion with stand up during the early part of the new century. Psychologically and financially flayed raw by the furore surrounding the "Jerry Springer - The Musical" which he partly co-wrote but was fully swept up in the cries for prosecution under Britain's superannuated blasphemy laws. In one of the appendices Lee gives a trenchant critique of the art form of musical theatre, reflected in the early chapters by his own disbelief that he ended up being part responsible for possibly the most infamous one. A wounded Lee retires to lick his wounds and gradually the flame to return to stand up flickers back to life. But he is striving for a purity of the experience and the book takes off from this point. If Lee can at times make his audience uncomfortable, it is nothing that he himself isn't also feeling towards himself.
We see the serendipitous events in his life that he is able to weave into thematic material. Those he tweaks for comic/artistic purposes and those he leaves untouched. One can marvel at the connections he finds to link them up. But he goes so much further. This book is a supreme study in the use of language. Lee says he tells very few jokes. What he does is pitch a stage character to the audience. Fully conscious of how to bring them along with him, how to alienate them. He plots his routine like a musical score and everything revolves around the telling. The points that he challenges the audience. The points that he lulls them in. The points when he deliberately keeps them at arms length. Then points where he flatters them, or divides them against themselves. Even the points where he is free to extemporise to overcome his confessed boredom at performing the same routine over and over again night after night. He considers and structures the minutiae of the flows in power and status relationships between his stage persona and the audience. He is plucking the stringed instrument of our emotions like a virtuoso.
How does this offer insight to a novelist? Through the crafting of his act. Through the precision of words chosen, of inflections and sounds. Every word of his routines, even to the 'ums' and 'ers' are deliberately laid down. But they look so conversational and natural that it is an art. And art is a key word in this book. Lee considers the mass commercial entertainment of any art form that is concerned with audience numbers which it then panders to reaffirming their preconceptions and values. And then there is awkward, challenging, subversive art that demands the audience to work. Lee is ambivalent at different times as to whether comedy is high art, but his is certainly literary; not through his references and allusions, but through his appreciation of language. He also offers his seeking out of the traditional comic forms of the Bouffon in France and the shaman-clowns of Pueblo native Americans. Their concern with mocking established communal values as a way of both reaffirming them and providing the possibility of what lies beyond such conformity. Lee comes away with the notion of a sacred, ritualistic space on stage and draws a chalk circle around himself in one of his acts, as talismanic protection before the crowd. It's that attention to detail, that complete and wholesale hallowing of his craft that makes Lee top of the contemporary comedy tree.
If I have a criticism, it's that he doesn't quite show us all his art. While the material is faithfully excavated for its sources, I wish he would relate the process of the writing itself. Since every word is honed, it might have been interesting to see early drafts of lines. Words rejected, or cuts made for rhythm purposes. He also sells himself short I feel, by not taking us into the process by which he commits his act to memory, working out the gestures and the movements across the stage. As writers, we read in public book in hand. Imaging having to learn a whole hour's worth of your own text in order to be able to deliver it word-perfect from memory to an audience. Now that makes it art.
I urge you to read this book, but not necessarily for the laughs.
November 26, 2012
Stewart Lee is the 41st best comedian in Britain. Fact. Provided you believe those awful Channel 4 list programmes that helpfully gave Stew the title for one of his 'comeback' shows. After a period of mild TV fame in the 90s, then mild infamy arising from his involvement with "Jerry Springer: The Opera" around 2002, this is a story of his struggle to re-engage with stand-up comedy and redevelop his performance from the ground up, leading to the dizzy heights he now occupies, as most London-living Guardian readers favourite stand-up comedian who has also co-written an opera.
I jest. It's hard not too. This is a fantastic book - a wonderfully written and frank account of what it is like to be a stand-up, or rather, what it is like to be Stewart Lee. His on-stage style is to deconstruct and explain everything, repeating endlessly, teasing the audience, and confusing/annoying many in the process, and this book takes that a stage further. The bulk of the book is transcripts of his 3 comeback shows from 2005, 2006 and 2008 that are littered with footnotes upon footnotes, explaining references, alternatives, anecdotes until it's hard to know where the 'routine' stops and the analysis starts, particularly since that's his style anyway.
Having already seen these 3 shows, and the subsequent 2 BBC series where he takes this approach to the limit, my only disappointment was that so much of the material was familiar, and (as he says) stand-up doesn't work as well on the page, otherwise it's just funny writing. That said, I defy anyone to enjoy this book, except my mother who stopped reading it because she said she didn't enjoy it.
I jest. It's hard not too. This is a fantastic book - a wonderfully written and frank account of what it is like to be a stand-up, or rather, what it is like to be Stewart Lee. His on-stage style is to deconstruct and explain everything, repeating endlessly, teasing the audience, and confusing/annoying many in the process, and this book takes that a stage further. The bulk of the book is transcripts of his 3 comeback shows from 2005, 2006 and 2008 that are littered with footnotes upon footnotes, explaining references, alternatives, anecdotes until it's hard to know where the 'routine' stops and the analysis starts, particularly since that's his style anyway.
Having already seen these 3 shows, and the subsequent 2 BBC series where he takes this approach to the limit, my only disappointment was that so much of the material was familiar, and (as he says) stand-up doesn't work as well on the page, otherwise it's just funny writing. That said, I defy anyone to enjoy this book, except my mother who stopped reading it because she said she didn't enjoy it.
January 21, 2011
This is a way of getting inside the head of a comedian. On DVDs now you can have a commentary , usually by the director, which gives an extra dimension to the film. This is a kind of written equivalent. Around some biographical information Stewart Lee has some transcripts of recent shows he has toured with. (I think you can buy them on DVD, but I haven't seen them) What he does is use footnotes extensively to explain, show where the idea came from, complain about something, or make some related cheap gag. The interesting part for me was the part about stand up being art. I know about musicians who allow their material to be slighly changed and /or adapted depending on the setting, how they feel, recent events etc. I really got a feel for this. I was left with a question that Lee (or Stew) asks himself, why are comics so important now? How come quite a large number can stage massive tours and shift so many DVDs?
August 4, 2013
I bought this for my husband essentially because I wanted to read it, and spent the entire read elbowing him going YOU'VE GOT TO READ THIS IT'S BRILLIANT! He's still not read it for some baffling reason but this is his loss and my gain.
September 4, 2010
Clowns are scary.
From the Pueblo clowns of New Mexico to the Bouffons of medieval France, clowns stand outside the social order, marking out their own sacred space from which they can parody and decry the pretensions of the high and mighty with impunity. These are not the jolly, red nosed men with the custard pies and big shoes, but the mad men, smeared with excrement who caper and point and mock. As I said, scary, but also necessary.
In this book, Lee analyzes three of his recent stand up routines by annotating a transcript with extensive footnotes that are longer than the pieces themselves. If this was a directors commentary on a DVD, it would require the stand up routine to be paused after every section to allow the commentary to catch up. Each routine is put in the context of Lee’s life during the mid 2000s - his career hitting a low point where he considered giving up stand up, his health problems and most famously his involvement with ‘Jerry Springer - the Opera’ that saw him facing a charge of blasphemy and the producers of the TV broadcast receiving death threats.
Barry Cryer once said that analyzing comedy was like dissecting a frog - nobody laughs and the frog dies. In this analysis, Stewart Lee disproves this truism with a book that is both perceptive and very funny. He emulates the Pueblo clowns in the way that he demolishes the social conventions of taste and decency with remorseless logic and precise scatological intent, particularly in his routine about vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ that is simultaneously revolting, hilarious, thought provoking and most importantly the one joke that Joe Pasquale could never steal to use on a Royal Variety performance.
From the Pueblo clowns of New Mexico to the Bouffons of medieval France, clowns stand outside the social order, marking out their own sacred space from which they can parody and decry the pretensions of the high and mighty with impunity. These are not the jolly, red nosed men with the custard pies and big shoes, but the mad men, smeared with excrement who caper and point and mock. As I said, scary, but also necessary.
In this book, Lee analyzes three of his recent stand up routines by annotating a transcript with extensive footnotes that are longer than the pieces themselves. If this was a directors commentary on a DVD, it would require the stand up routine to be paused after every section to allow the commentary to catch up. Each routine is put in the context of Lee’s life during the mid 2000s - his career hitting a low point where he considered giving up stand up, his health problems and most famously his involvement with ‘Jerry Springer - the Opera’ that saw him facing a charge of blasphemy and the producers of the TV broadcast receiving death threats.
Barry Cryer once said that analyzing comedy was like dissecting a frog - nobody laughs and the frog dies. In this analysis, Stewart Lee disproves this truism with a book that is both perceptive and very funny. He emulates the Pueblo clowns in the way that he demolishes the social conventions of taste and decency with remorseless logic and precise scatological intent, particularly in his routine about vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ that is simultaneously revolting, hilarious, thought provoking and most importantly the one joke that Joe Pasquale could never steal to use on a Royal Variety performance.
January 15, 2011
This book is part autobiography, part insider memoir, but primarily a meticulous deconstruction of comedy. Stewart Lee could be accused of analysing humour until all the spontaneity has been removed, but this is fitting for a comedian whose routines increasingly centre around discussion of comedy itself. Three of Lee's stand up routines are transcribed in full, with lengthy footnotes noting the effect on the audience that Lee is aiming to achieve. At times, this can feel like an acquittal - Lee is at pains to demonstrate that, although critics may note that he appears to flounder during his monologues, he's fully in control.
While Lee avoids much discussion of his 'celebrity' years (as half of Lee and Herring, stars of TV's Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard not Judy), he writes at length about outsider music, tribal traditions and reappraises comedy veterans that have inspired him. This book is a pretty convincing pitch to launch Stewart Lee as a scholar of comedy, first and foremost.
While Lee avoids much discussion of his 'celebrity' years (as half of Lee and Herring, stars of TV's Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard not Judy), he writes at length about outsider music, tribal traditions and reappraises comedy veterans that have inspired him. This book is a pretty convincing pitch to launch Stewart Lee as a scholar of comedy, first and foremost.
October 3, 2011
Not sure how to review this: I'm not a fanboy of Stewart Lee, but was intrigued to know more about his comedy and his approach to life. I've seen him be quite abrasive in the past, and was hoping the book would delve beneath that veneer.
It certainly does, as he dissects some of his recent stand up routines, and reveals how he agonises over the choice of words, and the way he is viewed, often regretting a particular phrase or depiction of someone.
Someone else has called it a DVD extras type of commentary, and it is exactly like that. This has the effect of making the "routine" disjointed, but enables you to analyse exactly what is going on.
Some of the footnotes strect over pages, so these are not throw away lines here, but a personal review of material which he has toured extensively.
There are some interesting insights into the nature of stand up, along with some views on other comedians which I didn't expect....
It certainly does, as he dissects some of his recent stand up routines, and reveals how he agonises over the choice of words, and the way he is viewed, often regretting a particular phrase or depiction of someone.
Someone else has called it a DVD extras type of commentary, and it is exactly like that. This has the effect of making the "routine" disjointed, but enables you to analyse exactly what is going on.
Some of the footnotes strect over pages, so these are not throw away lines here, but a personal review of material which he has toured extensively.
There are some interesting insights into the nature of stand up, along with some views on other comedians which I didn't expect....
August 25, 2010
Not so much an autobiography, as an exploration of how Lee crafts his shows, what inspires him, and what he endeavours to achieve with his stand up. Consisting of heavily annotated transcripts of his three stand up shows available on dvd, interspersed with chapters detail his professional life and career (Lee avoids detailing his personal life as much as possible, unless relevant to his comedy). This is not a book for those seeking a laugh a minute humour riot, as much of Lee's comedy does not transfer well to the written page (indeed he states that it his intention to make his work as reliant of witnessing it being performed as possible), this book is instead, a fascinating and enlightening book for anyone interested in the idea of stand up comedy as an art form, and in the mechanics and methods behind that art.
August 14, 2017
Interesting story!
Showbusiness is weeeeeird. Interesting to consider that if once you drew 2 million viewers then fell into anonymity, catchphrases shouted at you from a former era would simply hurt! There's no such thing as "in."
Essential reading for today's aspiring "alternative comedians", since Lee provides transcripts of his shows with notes indicating his intentions with meaning, rhythm, and the shows' overall arc. But his comedy isn't meant to be delivered in the same way as it's read, and most readers probably aren't aspiring ACs, so...?
Showbusiness is weeeeeird. Interesting to consider that if once you drew 2 million viewers then fell into anonymity, catchphrases shouted at you from a former era would simply hurt! There's no such thing as "in."
Essential reading for today's aspiring "alternative comedians", since Lee provides transcripts of his shows with notes indicating his intentions with meaning, rhythm, and the shows' overall arc. But his comedy isn't meant to be delivered in the same way as it's read, and most readers probably aren't aspiring ACs, so...?
May 15, 2019
I love Stewart Lee and this book provides an interesting insight into what goes into producing stand-up comedy. You see a guy performing comedy - especially someone like Lee who uses so much apparent improvisation - and think, 'he's a naturally funny person'.
But this book shows just how much painstaking work goes into every joke, every pretend improvisation, every aspect of the show. Told in the form of transcripts of Lee's comeback shows in the early 2000s, it includes annotations about the source of each joke as well as essays on his mental state at the time.
But this book shows just how much painstaking work goes into every joke, every pretend improvisation, every aspect of the show. Told in the form of transcripts of Lee's comeback shows in the early 2000s, it includes annotations about the source of each joke as well as essays on his mental state at the time.
September 2, 2011
For those of you who don't know, Stewart Lee is a stand-up comedian. This book is built around the transcripts of three of his shows, each heavily footnoted with his own technical comments: why he thinks things are funny, notes on delivery, where jokes came from, his comedic influences and so on. Preceding each transcript is a chapter explaining that show's genesis which inevitably involves a lot of stuff about his personal life and the state of his career. The result is a book which combines autobiography with a lot of thoughtful commentary about the art of stand-up.
I was going to say that the book serves as a record of the stand-up routines, but perhaps that's not right. To quote one of the footnotes:
So the DVDs are the record of the performance; the book is a critical commentary on the DVDs.
It's certainly a slightly odd experience reading the routines on the page. They have relatively few clearly defined jokes in them, and although you can see where the humour is, they feel anaemic and formless without a performance to hold them together. And I've only seen some parts of the routines, on YouTube, and I know that they're funny, but it's hard to recapture that on the page. Even more so for the bits I haven't seen before.
It's a fascinating form, stand-up. Lee draws a comparison with fooling and clowning traditions, like the pueblo clowns of the southwestern US, who are given special licence to behave in disruptive, socially transgressive ways. And I can entirely see the strength of that comparison. The comparison that occurred to me, though, was with oral traditions, whether the verse traditions of Homer and Beowulf or non-verse oral storytelling traditions. You have one man standing up in front of a crowd and entertaining them by performing long stories from memory, but with a degree of flexibility and improvisation, varying from performance to performance. And one reason that stories from oral cultures often seem slightly odd when you read them may be the lack of performance. Of course in many cases, not only do we have a recording of the actual performance, we don't even have a verbatim transcript of one particular telling of a story; instead we have some well-meaning anthropologist's version of what the story is about.
Anyway, I have wandered off topic. It's a good book.
I was going to say that the book serves as a record of the stand-up routines, but perhaps that's not right. To quote one of the footnotes:
The chiselling here, where I tapped the mic stand with the mic, went on at some length, sometimes uninterrupted for minutes at a time, with me varying the rhythm and intensity of the tapping. This doesn't work on the page, and ideally, my ambition is to get to a point where none of my stand-up works on the page. I don't think stand-up should work on the page, so the very existence of this book is an indication of my ultimate failure as a comedian. The text of a stand-up set should be so dependent on performance and tone that it can't really work on the page, otherwise it's just funny writing. You don't have to have spent too long thinking about stand-up to realise that even though critics and TV commissioners always talk about our art form in terms of its content, it is the rhythm, pitch, tone and pace of what we do — the non-verbal cues — that are arguably more important, if less easy to identify and define.
So the DVDs are the record of the performance; the book is a critical commentary on the DVDs.
It's certainly a slightly odd experience reading the routines on the page. They have relatively few clearly defined jokes in them, and although you can see where the humour is, they feel anaemic and formless without a performance to hold them together. And I've only seen some parts of the routines, on YouTube, and I know that they're funny, but it's hard to recapture that on the page. Even more so for the bits I haven't seen before.
It's a fascinating form, stand-up. Lee draws a comparison with fooling and clowning traditions, like the pueblo clowns of the southwestern US, who are given special licence to behave in disruptive, socially transgressive ways. And I can entirely see the strength of that comparison. The comparison that occurred to me, though, was with oral traditions, whether the verse traditions of Homer and Beowulf or non-verse oral storytelling traditions. You have one man standing up in front of a crowd and entertaining them by performing long stories from memory, but with a degree of flexibility and improvisation, varying from performance to performance. And one reason that stories from oral cultures often seem slightly odd when you read them may be the lack of performance. Of course in many cases, not only do we have a recording of the actual performance, we don't even have a verbatim transcript of one particular telling of a story; instead we have some well-meaning anthropologist's version of what the story is about.
Anyway, I have wandered off topic. It's a good book.
February 18, 2013
Stewart Lee can remember a time (in the 1980s, fact fans) when comedy was genuinely "alternative", subversive and had a radical agenda. It's true I tell you. Small comedy clubs in the back rooms of pubs where the likes of Harry Hill, Simon Munnery, Jo Brand, Ian Cognito, Mark Steele and many, many more would challenge their audiences. Amazing. I often wonder how we got to the situation where comedy has become more about filling enormo-domes, and populating formulaic panel shows, than about challenging the audience.
Stewart started as a stand up comedian just after the golden age of Alternative Comedy and he is the perfect person to help anyone who is interested in understanding the evolution of stand up, the way it works, the way it is managed, and a bit about his life and work.
"How I Escaped My Certain Fate" works on so many levels:
- it's a autobiography of Stewart Lee - which contains many surprising twists and turns
- it's a verbatim record of some of his more recent stand up routines with numerous lengthy footnotes that explain and elaborate on the content
- it's a deconstruction of comedy that aims to explain how comedy works and what comedy is capable of
- it's a history of comedy and a dissection of various forms
- it's frequently very funny
- it's all explained by a thoughtful, witty, intelligent narrator.
The book is a joy. Perhaps it's really only for those people who already like Stewart Lee. Perhaps. I really like Stewart Lee and I can't imagine what it would be like not to like him. That said, he is a cult comedian and clearly there are plenty of people out there who don't share my enthusiasm. Perhaps they just need to read this book? You decide.
Stewart started as a stand up comedian just after the golden age of Alternative Comedy and he is the perfect person to help anyone who is interested in understanding the evolution of stand up, the way it works, the way it is managed, and a bit about his life and work.
"How I Escaped My Certain Fate" works on so many levels:
- it's a autobiography of Stewart Lee - which contains many surprising twists and turns
- it's a verbatim record of some of his more recent stand up routines with numerous lengthy footnotes that explain and elaborate on the content
- it's a deconstruction of comedy that aims to explain how comedy works and what comedy is capable of
- it's a history of comedy and a dissection of various forms
- it's frequently very funny
- it's all explained by a thoughtful, witty, intelligent narrator.
The book is a joy. Perhaps it's really only for those people who already like Stewart Lee. Perhaps. I really like Stewart Lee and I can't imagine what it would be like not to like him. That said, he is a cult comedian and clearly there are plenty of people out there who don't share my enthusiasm. Perhaps they just need to read this book? You decide.
August 12, 2018
A comedian and an artist - with some of the bloat and near-repulsive belligerence that entails
Book has tons of general merit: it’s about trying to be artful in a genre where populism is a condition of being recognised as a practitioner at all. And Lee just has his shit worked out, is by turns harshly enlightening and plaintively endearing.
I even love his intellectual flab: the Wire mag chat, ignoble snarking, and attempt at epic free verse. I trust him – but you can’t trust him. (Recent shows are founded on outrageous lies, satirising spin/smear cultures in our media and government and employers and friends.) Hard to know who the joke-explaining footnotes are for – since his fans already get it, and no-one else’s going to read this. That said, if you don’t like him or don’t know about him, please read this. For instance, he explains that onstage he 'portrays a smug wanker’.
If you've not seen me before, right, a lot of what I do, er, it's not jokes as such, it can just be funny kind of ideas or little, er, weird turns of phrase like that, yeah? So, 'owner-operator of an enchanted beanstalk', yeah? And that's a giant, isn't it, a giant... So all I’m saying, if you’ve not seen me before, yeah, is the jokes are there, they're there, but some of you, you might have to raise your game.
Book has tons of general merit: it’s about trying to be artful in a genre where populism is a condition of being recognised as a practitioner at all. And Lee just has his shit worked out, is by turns harshly enlightening and plaintively endearing.
Basically there’s a whole generation of people who’ve confused political correctness with health and safety regulation. ‘It’s gone mad. They saying I can’t have an electric fire in the bath any more, Stew, in case queers see it.’
I even love his intellectual flab: the Wire mag chat, ignoble snarking, and attempt at epic free verse. I trust him – but you can’t trust him. (Recent shows are founded on outrageous lies, satirising spin/smear cultures in our media and government and employers and friends.) Hard to know who the joke-explaining footnotes are for – since his fans already get it, and no-one else’s going to read this. That said, if you don’t like him or don’t know about him, please read this. For instance, he explains that onstage he 'portrays a smug wanker’.
January 8, 2011
Stewart Lee seems to be one of the best, and certainly one of the smartest, stand-up comics still working the UK circuit today. I hope long after the Frankie Boyles and Andy Parsons' have disappeared, Lee is working his niche steadily.
"How I Escaped My Certain Fate" is his autobiography/career overview/warts-and-all view of the 'business' of comedy (in the UK). He discusses the 'aternative comedy' boom in the UK in the early 80s and his place in it, starting in the mid-to-late 80s. I kinda wish he had spent a bit more time discussing his double-act days with Richard Herring--but you can't have it all.
The best bits for me are the transcriptions of his 'comeback' shows - "Stand-Up Comedian", "90s Comedian" and "41st Best Stand-Up Ever". The latter was especially great, because I didn't get to see him on that tour. Lee provides foot-notes, some quite lengthy, to explain certain sections of the routines. For some, this may take some of the mystery out of the jokes. For me, they revealed whole other layers of humour.
There's also an enlightening chapter on the whole "Jerry Springer: The Opera" debacle, where Lee and the producer fell afoul of fundie X-tians, who didn't even bother to go see the thing. Ain't it always the way? Also notable is his frustration with the BBC over commissioning his "Comedy Vehicle" series.
If you want an intelligent and heartfelt look at a journey through the 90s and 00's comedy scene in the UK, I heartily recommend this book. I mean, you could do worse--like buy Chris Moyles' books...or Joe Pasquale's.
"How I Escaped My Certain Fate" is his autobiography/career overview/warts-and-all view of the 'business' of comedy (in the UK). He discusses the 'aternative comedy' boom in the UK in the early 80s and his place in it, starting in the mid-to-late 80s. I kinda wish he had spent a bit more time discussing his double-act days with Richard Herring--but you can't have it all.
The best bits for me are the transcriptions of his 'comeback' shows - "Stand-Up Comedian", "90s Comedian" and "41st Best Stand-Up Ever". The latter was especially great, because I didn't get to see him on that tour. Lee provides foot-notes, some quite lengthy, to explain certain sections of the routines. For some, this may take some of the mystery out of the jokes. For me, they revealed whole other layers of humour.
There's also an enlightening chapter on the whole "Jerry Springer: The Opera" debacle, where Lee and the producer fell afoul of fundie X-tians, who didn't even bother to go see the thing. Ain't it always the way? Also notable is his frustration with the BBC over commissioning his "Comedy Vehicle" series.
If you want an intelligent and heartfelt look at a journey through the 90s and 00's comedy scene in the UK, I heartily recommend this book. I mean, you could do worse--like buy Chris Moyles' books...or Joe Pasquale's.
June 2, 2012
Absolutely brilliant. This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. It had me bursting out laughing in public time and time again. It is part memoir, part history of alternative comedy from the 80's to today, part transcript of three of Lee's stand up routines from the last few years and part meta-commentary on his routines. I didn't know how well a stand up comedy transcript would work on the page, and an in depth analysis carried out through extensive footnotes sounds potentially disastrous, but it works fantastically well. Stewart Lee has already proven himself to be one of the funniest and most intelligent comedians of our day and this book utterly confirms it. He is one of the few comedians who is conscious of the art, craft and history of comedy and he is pushing it as far as it can be taken. A few comedians have raised the bar for what is possible in comedy, such as Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks, and Stewart Lee is one of them.
I saw 90's Comedian at Under the Bridge in Ladbroke Grove and it was the best stand up comedy performance I've ever seen. The audience were astonished at how far he went and I remember the electric blend of tension and hilarity in the room.
I saw 90's Comedian at Under the Bridge in Ladbroke Grove and it was the best stand up comedy performance I've ever seen. The audience were astonished at how far he went and I remember the electric blend of tension and hilarity in the room.
January 21, 2013
How I Escaped My Certain Fate is a strange book. At its core are the transcripts of three of Stewart Lee's stand up shows. I had the pleasure of seeing all three live at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the transcripts brought back many happy memories of funny, confronting shows. But the real joy is seeing Stewart Lee's annotations - in many instances far longer than the text being annotated - setting out his rationale, his thoughts or how it went down with different audiences. He includes thought on comic timing (at which he is a genius) and gauging and working each audience. There are also other writings, articles, interviews and a form of autobiography of the time in and after Jerry Springer The Musical.
Overall, it is clear (and his audiences will already know) that Stewart Lee is frighteningly intelligent; thinks through his act very carefully; and works intentionally on many levels. His level of insight is remarkable and his willingness to share it is generous. This is very much the way he plays on stage - human and respectful of the audience.
So, if you're bright and want an insight into how a comedy show works, read this book. But if you're Joe Pasquale, it's probably better not to bother.
Overall, it is clear (and his audiences will already know) that Stewart Lee is frighteningly intelligent; thinks through his act very carefully; and works intentionally on many levels. His level of insight is remarkable and his willingness to share it is generous. This is very much the way he plays on stage - human and respectful of the audience.
So, if you're bright and want an insight into how a comedy show works, read this book. But if you're Joe Pasquale, it's probably better not to bother.
April 4, 2011
really good insight into just how much thought goes into a stewart lee gig, and how the constant repetition and going off on tangents usually is a process given a lot of thought for specific reasons. makes the gigs seem a whole lot funnier, and has definitely made me think of lee as a greater comedian than i originally thought. truly one of the best standup comedians out there - way better than 41st greatest ever!
February 9, 2017
Stewart Lee is an odd kind of comedian, one who eschews limp routines that trade on collective nostalgia in favour of somewhat tortuous narratives that seem intent on alienating the audience and then, through effort and force of will, win it back again. I happen to like his work, so looked forward to reading this book, which is structured in such a way to explore the creative process behind his “comeback” to stand-up comedy in the mid-2000s.
Thankfully, it works! The book is a master class in how to appreciate comedy – or, at least Lee's intellectual, occasionally intentionally inaccessible kind of comedy. As the man himself says, "Within a few years, ‘jokes', as we comedians call them, will have been entirely purged from my work in favour, exclusively, of grinding repetition, embarrassing silences and passive-aggressive monotony."
The heart of the book is the dissection of three live shows. For each, we are provided with a full transcript and a parallel narrative in the form of exhaustive footnotes, (of great depth, the longest of the footnotes is about three and a half pages in length!). Through this, Lee explains the workings of the jokes, or at least celebrates their failure.
There is honesty in Lee that very much frustrates his detractors. His basic philosophy is that the punter is generally wrong when it comes to comedy. He writes, "It is a constant source of frustration to comics, that you, the public, are often inordinately thrilled by things that we do which are quite easy, and baffled or bored by the stuff we are proud of, or else assume that our finest moments are errors or accidents."
As such, the book is a great privilege to get a look under the hood and explore the inner mechanics of a comedian’s act. He’s open about his missteps and comedic regrets, which take the edge off the perception that he loathes the audience.
There is a deep intellectual grasp of comedy itself here, and the footnotes demonstrated a keen degree of conceptual understanding and subversive riffing as we see in the live act. Lee’s style is one of hesitations, digressions and repetitions, which itself works surprisingly well on the page.
I really enjoyed this, and would happily recommend it to anyone who considers themselves a fan of comedy.
Thankfully, it works! The book is a master class in how to appreciate comedy – or, at least Lee's intellectual, occasionally intentionally inaccessible kind of comedy. As the man himself says, "Within a few years, ‘jokes', as we comedians call them, will have been entirely purged from my work in favour, exclusively, of grinding repetition, embarrassing silences and passive-aggressive monotony."
The heart of the book is the dissection of three live shows. For each, we are provided with a full transcript and a parallel narrative in the form of exhaustive footnotes, (of great depth, the longest of the footnotes is about three and a half pages in length!). Through this, Lee explains the workings of the jokes, or at least celebrates their failure.
There is honesty in Lee that very much frustrates his detractors. His basic philosophy is that the punter is generally wrong when it comes to comedy. He writes, "It is a constant source of frustration to comics, that you, the public, are often inordinately thrilled by things that we do which are quite easy, and baffled or bored by the stuff we are proud of, or else assume that our finest moments are errors or accidents."
As such, the book is a great privilege to get a look under the hood and explore the inner mechanics of a comedian’s act. He’s open about his missteps and comedic regrets, which take the edge off the perception that he loathes the audience.
There is a deep intellectual grasp of comedy itself here, and the footnotes demonstrated a keen degree of conceptual understanding and subversive riffing as we see in the live act. Lee’s style is one of hesitations, digressions and repetitions, which itself works surprisingly well on the page.
I really enjoyed this, and would happily recommend it to anyone who considers themselves a fan of comedy.
October 22, 2014
"I don't think stand-up should really work on the page, so the very existence of this book is an indication of my ultimate failure as a comedian."
Stewart Lee, in this single sentence towards the end of his book, explains concisely the dilemma of presenting the works of a stand-up comedian in text form.
Objectively, the book is a history of his career, interspersed with the scripts of 3 of his comedy shows - all of which I had seen recordings of multiple times. It's interesting to read the extensive footnotes explaining certain ideas, techniques and histories of various sections of his works. Much of the time the information is the sort of thing that I'd already gleaned from the performance itself, though it's often nice to see this reinforced. Other times his notes gave some insight into why things worked, or why they might not have.
One of the most pleasant parts, though, was to see a well loved master of his craft enduring struggles and adversity and how he used these to build his shows and feed his output. This isn't the text of a showy star bragging about his successes, more an analysis of how he managed to find a way despite the obstacles. It spoke to the struggling artist I've been in the past, and the artist who still has the odd bad day that I am now - not arrogantly, but sympathetically.
For me, though, the most interesting thing here is how strongly it reinforces that comedy is as much about performance, tone, timing and character as it is about content. The material here still works on paper, but though it comes across as amusing, well thought out and cleverly put together, it's clear something is missing. As thoroughly as this book has been assembled, it is, by Lee's own admission, not how the material is meant to be delivered.
Nevertheless, fans of Lee and of comedy in general will no doubt find some treasure in these pages. Approach it not as a comedy book, but as a book about comedy. It's an extended essay on the hidden workings, history and inspirations behind one of the most refined, creative and thought provoking stand-up acts I've ever encountered. In this role it excels, and is therefore quite recommendable.
Stewart Lee, in this single sentence towards the end of his book, explains concisely the dilemma of presenting the works of a stand-up comedian in text form.
Objectively, the book is a history of his career, interspersed with the scripts of 3 of his comedy shows - all of which I had seen recordings of multiple times. It's interesting to read the extensive footnotes explaining certain ideas, techniques and histories of various sections of his works. Much of the time the information is the sort of thing that I'd already gleaned from the performance itself, though it's often nice to see this reinforced. Other times his notes gave some insight into why things worked, or why they might not have.
One of the most pleasant parts, though, was to see a well loved master of his craft enduring struggles and adversity and how he used these to build his shows and feed his output. This isn't the text of a showy star bragging about his successes, more an analysis of how he managed to find a way despite the obstacles. It spoke to the struggling artist I've been in the past, and the artist who still has the odd bad day that I am now - not arrogantly, but sympathetically.
For me, though, the most interesting thing here is how strongly it reinforces that comedy is as much about performance, tone, timing and character as it is about content. The material here still works on paper, but though it comes across as amusing, well thought out and cleverly put together, it's clear something is missing. As thoroughly as this book has been assembled, it is, by Lee's own admission, not how the material is meant to be delivered.
Nevertheless, fans of Lee and of comedy in general will no doubt find some treasure in these pages. Approach it not as a comedy book, but as a book about comedy. It's an extended essay on the hidden workings, history and inspirations behind one of the most refined, creative and thought provoking stand-up acts I've ever encountered. In this role it excels, and is therefore quite recommendable.
February 1, 2021
"All I'm saying is if you've not seen me before, the jokes are there, but some of you might have to raise your game. Cause there's harder stuff than that in this show. There's a bit that's borderline incomprehensible, about insects, even to me."
Stewart Lee: 41st Best Stand-Up Ever! (2008)
A book of heavily annotated transcripts of 3 of Stewart Lee's shows performed after his haitus from and grand return to stand-up does not sound particularly accessible, fun or inviting. Lee's material isn't for everyone, and that's not an accident. His apparent disdain for more generic 'lesser' comedy and even his own audience have become a mainstay in his work since these shows, as well as the self-referential, sometimes self-sabotaging material.
However, it really does work as a compelling and very funny insight into many of the stories told (where a surprising amount is actually true), the structures chosen and where he breaks convention to make himself laugh, if nobody else. It was really fun to rewatch one of the shows with Laura, then read through the transcript for that deep insight and proceed to annoyingly relay any funny fact or tidbit to her throughout the day while she works and absentmindedly agrees or says "oh good, are you going to have a shower today?"
Any fan of Stewart Lee or stand-up in general should get plenty out of this. There's some show-biz element to it at times as he discusses the rise and fall of Jerry Springer: The Opera and it's ensuing blasphemy case. It's interesting to see other comics who Lee admires, including Johnny Vegas, Harry Hill and Ricky Gervais. But mostly, it feels like it strips away any kind of glamour of the job and puts you in the mindset of a middle-aged hangover of a 90s alternative comedian.
A downside would be that even for myself, an avid fan, it can come off a bit too arrogant or pretentious and his disdain for other comics and their successes can be a bit much at times.
Stewart Lee: 41st Best Stand-Up Ever! (2008)
A book of heavily annotated transcripts of 3 of Stewart Lee's shows performed after his haitus from and grand return to stand-up does not sound particularly accessible, fun or inviting. Lee's material isn't for everyone, and that's not an accident. His apparent disdain for more generic 'lesser' comedy and even his own audience have become a mainstay in his work since these shows, as well as the self-referential, sometimes self-sabotaging material.
However, it really does work as a compelling and very funny insight into many of the stories told (where a surprising amount is actually true), the structures chosen and where he breaks convention to make himself laugh, if nobody else. It was really fun to rewatch one of the shows with Laura, then read through the transcript for that deep insight and proceed to annoyingly relay any funny fact or tidbit to her throughout the day while she works and absentmindedly agrees or says "oh good, are you going to have a shower today?"
Any fan of Stewart Lee or stand-up in general should get plenty out of this. There's some show-biz element to it at times as he discusses the rise and fall of Jerry Springer: The Opera and it's ensuing blasphemy case. It's interesting to see other comics who Lee admires, including Johnny Vegas, Harry Hill and Ricky Gervais. But mostly, it feels like it strips away any kind of glamour of the job and puts you in the mindset of a middle-aged hangover of a 90s alternative comedian.
A downside would be that even for myself, an avid fan, it can come off a bit too arrogant or pretentious and his disdain for other comics and their successes can be a bit much at times.
Read
August 5, 2011great read especially if you are already a big fan of Stewart Lee's stand up. I posted a clip of Stewart Lee talking about Political Correctness on you tube a few years back which has had over 50000 hits and he corrects some of the stuff that people had posted in the comments in that clip which was good.
Stewart Lee will never probably appeal to the mainstream and represents what seems to have been lost by the "alternative" comedians i.e the willingness to present challenging and controversial ideas in a intelligent and (more importantly) entertaining way.
Over the last decade he has successfully built up the kind of audience that appreciates what he does and he has done this by avoiding the likes of jongleurs and the usual round of panel games that are frequented by other comics. His unwillingness to compromise his material to make things easier for himself financially has finally paid off with a couple of tv series on bbc2 which are well deserved and have earned him his place as one of the most critically acclaimed comics in the country.
Stewart Lee will never probably appeal to the mainstream and represents what seems to have been lost by the "alternative" comedians i.e the willingness to present challenging and controversial ideas in a intelligent and (more importantly) entertaining way.
Over the last decade he has successfully built up the kind of audience that appreciates what he does and he has done this by avoiding the likes of jongleurs and the usual round of panel games that are frequented by other comics. His unwillingness to compromise his material to make things easier for himself financially has finally paid off with a couple of tv series on bbc2 which are well deserved and have earned him his place as one of the most critically acclaimed comics in the country.
October 18, 2016
I read this after reading "Content Provider" - the more recent book, which left me wanting more. I found this fascinating. Transcripts of the shows he performed after "Jerry Springer - The Opera" are set against the backdrop of what was happening in Stew's life at the time. Very interesting to hear about the rise of alternative comedy from Stew's perspective. Reading this on kindle format made referencing the many many footnotes in the transcripts an easy job. The footnotes were particularly enjoyable - valuable insight into the more obscure references in the shows and notes on why things were included.
This was such an enjoyable read. Shame it had to end.
This was such an enjoyable read. Shame it had to end.
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