Stewart Lee’s Vegetable Stew

Until recently Stewart Lee was the most critically acclaimed comedian never heard of. Then he got a TV show. But despite a noticeable swelling of audience numbers following last year’s Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle on the BBC, he’s still not likely to win a Michael McIntyre-sized following any time soon – which is just part of his unique brilliance.

The modest Leicester Square Theatre is comfortably full for Lee’s Vegetable Stew – where he’s road testing ideas for his second TV series next year. And although the show lacks the unifying narrative drive of previous tours such as 41^st Best Comedian have – because he’s working out pieces for 25-minute programme slots – Lee is still on form as ever.

Highlights include the beautifully sardonic character assassinations of Adrian Chiles (AKA the talking Toby Jug) and Russell Howard – who gets singled out for his contributions to the aggressive comedy found on Mock the Week. ‘Mock the weak, how about mock the strong? Have some ambition’.

Lee also returns to older material in a reworking of a routine from ‘90s Comedian about missing the IRA now we have Al Qaeda. Issues of nationalism, racism and small-mindedness are obviously present here, especially when he adopts the hectoring tone of an elderly Daily Mail reader.

There’s a deliberate creation of awkward tension also at play– complaining that half the room is hostile toward him at one point. ‘Some laughter here and over there but here and here are problem spots,’ he says, while gesturing to the areas in question. But the most hilarious moment is when he drops the mic and wanders into the audience – at which point a couple get up and leave. Cue rant about this not being his ‘target audience’.

Lee will undoubtedly grow in fame following his next TV series, and it’ll be interesting to see where he’ll take his persona of an ‘outsider’ looking in. However, tonight seems confirmation that even with a bit of TV-induced popularity, Lee will remain defiantly unpalatable to some comedic taste.

Ingredients for Vegetable Stew include biting cultural observations, a generous dash of repetition, seasoning of self-reference and a drop of audience alienation. Not always easy to digest, but I can’t wait for the full course next year.

Vegetable Stew is showing until 18 December at:

Leicester Square Theatre
6 Leicester Place
Holborn
WC2H 7BP

Tel: 020 7734 6004