I might be an atheist, but I'm not stupid.
Dec. 1st, 2005 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeI went to see Stewart Lee in Morecambe with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jekesta. alicamel didn't want to come, we didn't just abandon her cruelly or anything. We got successfully to the Platform (thanks in large part to my navigational talents, I think you'll find), and thne we bought tickets from people who weren't really keen on the concept. It's like they'd never really thought that this moment would happen to them. Then we went to the pub next door and bought drinks and food after ascertaining that they could be delivered within the 40 minutes we had to spare. They could, and the man also tried to sell us on Baileys chocolate cups, which is a shot of Baileys, delivered to you in a chocolate cup. We had noticed the sign for them while he was pouring coke, and he had clearly heard us exclaiming about the possibilities of such a thing. But Jen was driving, and I am still ill, so we did not. But I have remembered about them for another time. I had a steak, but very quickly realised that possibly I shouldn't be eating at all, so I kept eating for a little while just to make sure, and decidedperhaps best not. But no mishaps came from that, thankfully.
The Platform is the old Morecambe train station. It's really sad, as now they just have the one platform, although you can get to Leeds direct from it, which is quite good. But this one is huge and has a glass roof - a roof at all is just thumbing its nose at the new station - and signs for Bolton and Sheffield and adverts for new trains. The bit where people perform is just a large hall, with the acoustics, as Stewart Lee reamarked, of a train station. It's rather peculiar. There weren't very many people there, about fiftyish, maybe a bit more, and sat in small groups around chairs in a rather sad attempt at cabaret style.
The support act was a man apparently called Steven Carling, in which case it's a pity he never learnt how to pronounce his name properly so that people might know what it is and not have to go to Stewart Lee's website to found out. He was a SNOOKER COMEDIAN. He mentioned snooker at every conceivable opportunity, talking about naming hurricanes "Higgins" and the confusion that might lead to, pointing out that the problem with America is that it's never produced a world champion snooker player, unlike Canada, and then a man in the audience (who later proved to be a complete wanker, sadly), showed off all his knowledge of Cliff Thorburn, also known as "The Grinder". That bit rather passed me by, but I understood almost all that he said! He did a bit about Reservoir Dogs and how you shouldn't be ashamed to be Mr Pink because it's the highest scoring ball in the absence of Mr Black, even taking into account the thingy with calling any other ball a red if you need to. Which I totally understand. He said "you may be asking why I'm wearing a diving watch in a non-aquatic venue" and a man at the front put his hand up to offer an opinion. Steven Carling said it was the politest heckle ever. Then later he asked Bernard (for that was the polite heckler) what his favourite film was, in order that he could ignore what he actually said and say "Reservoir Dogs" and get a laugh, but Bernard's favourite film is Pulp Fiction, and no-one really laughed because of it being the same director and appearing more like a mistake than an actual joke type situation.
Do you know Stewart Lee? He was a double thing with Richard Herring in Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy (oh, and in the absence of Richard to do the things he normally does he says them himself or pretends the audience has and you can so tell which bits they are) and he co-wrote and directed Jerry Springer the Opera which made him the focus of a right wing evangelical Christian hate campaign and nearly landed him in court for blasphemy. So, he is funny, and intelligent, and Controversial, but in a proper making you think way rather than the new-fangled way of Being Controversial, which is an apparent euphemism for Being Shit in a New Way.
His mum lives in a village. It is the kind of village where the house across the road has a flag pole, and when the union flag is flying you know that British troops have committed another atrocity abroad. Also he is Known in the local shop for his long black coat.
Morecambe is a smallish 1950s seaside resort that has gone rather badly downhill. Despite this, the front is filled with bed and breakfasts, none of which would let them have a room for the night.
He made us clap the IRA. This was apparently essential in order to prove that we understood irony and enable him to move forward into the second half.
He decided that half of the room weren't keeping up well enough with the jokes, so he labelled them "Team F" and harrassed them about it for a while.
He said that everyone needs to stop reading Dan Brown books because "intellectuals like me have been telling you about literature for ages". And that he wanted a poster campaign against Dan Brown books.
Oh, he got onto Dan Brown through talking about the Iraq war and atrocities committed therein. He said "it was one of the stories that was discredited but was actually true" and me and Jen were the only people who laughed and then he kind of explained it a bit. It was the one about them throwing the Koran in a toilet at Guantanamo Bay, and he said he was most offended because there were thousands of bookshops selling millions of Dan Brown books that could have been used instead.
And that the Vatican issued a statement saying that you shouldn't believe The Da Vinci Code because it's mostly fiction and based on unsubstantiated historical evidence.
He slept through the London bombings on the 7th July this year, and woke up to find emails from his friends saying "are you all right" and he was touched that they knew he'd been having a difficult year, although puzzled that they were all enquiring about it at the same time and replied "yes thanks, fine. How are you?" to them. Then he realised and watched the journalists vying inappropriately for eye-witness statements from dazed people who needed medical attention instead of microphones and writing down what they said. "Becuase I am a person just like you, and I was shocked and worried about people and hoping that there weren't too many killed and wondering about the political ramifications. But I am also a comedian, and I thought "that's funny, I should write that down.""
Joe Pasquale stole a comedian's joke. If I didn't hate Joe Pasquale just for this I would for being the reason that I had to sit through about 20 minutes of a description of Stewart Lee being copiously sick in his mother's downstairs toilet, eventually running out of room to be sick in and having Christ ask him to be sick in, first, his open mouth, and second, his gaping anus, partly so that Stewart Lee could say he'd written a joke that Joe Pasquale couldn't steal. I appreciate the many points he was making there, and agree with most of what he says, but I would rather not have to sit through descriptions of vomit. Also, being an atheist, my discomfort was based less on the presence of a religious icon, but more on the feeling that even if someone asks you to be sick in their mouth or anus, unless it's actually a thing they really really enjoy (which wasn't made apparent in this situation), you should refuse anyway.
jekesta. alicamel didn't want to come, we didn't just abandon her cruelly or anything. We got successfully to the Platform (thanks in large part to my navigational talents, I think you'll find), and thne we bought tickets from people who weren't really keen on the concept. It's like they'd never really thought that this moment would happen to them. Then we went to the pub next door and bought drinks and food after ascertaining that they could be delivered within the 40 minutes we had to spare. They could, and the man also tried to sell us on Baileys chocolate cups, which is a shot of Baileys, delivered to you in a chocolate cup. We had noticed the sign for them while he was pouring coke, and he had clearly heard us exclaiming about the possibilities of such a thing. But Jen was driving, and I am still ill, so we did not. But I have remembered about them for another time. I had a steak, but very quickly realised that possibly I shouldn't be eating at all, so I kept eating for a little while just to make sure, and decidedperhaps best not. But no mishaps came from that, thankfully. The Platform is the old Morecambe train station. It's really sad, as now they just have the one platform, although you can get to Leeds direct from it, which is quite good. But this one is huge and has a glass roof - a roof at all is just thumbing its nose at the new station - and signs for Bolton and Sheffield and adverts for new trains. The bit where people perform is just a large hall, with the acoustics, as Stewart Lee reamarked, of a train station. It's rather peculiar. There weren't very many people there, about fiftyish, maybe a bit more, and sat in small groups around chairs in a rather sad attempt at cabaret style.
The support act was a man apparently called Steven Carling, in which case it's a pity he never learnt how to pronounce his name properly so that people might know what it is and not have to go to Stewart Lee's website to found out. He was a SNOOKER COMEDIAN. He mentioned snooker at every conceivable opportunity, talking about naming hurricanes "Higgins" and the confusion that might lead to, pointing out that the problem with America is that it's never produced a world champion snooker player, unlike Canada, and then a man in the audience (who later proved to be a complete wanker, sadly), showed off all his knowledge of Cliff Thorburn, also known as "The Grinder". That bit rather passed me by, but I understood almost all that he said! He did a bit about Reservoir Dogs and how you shouldn't be ashamed to be Mr Pink because it's the highest scoring ball in the absence of Mr Black, even taking into account the thingy with calling any other ball a red if you need to. Which I totally understand. He said "you may be asking why I'm wearing a diving watch in a non-aquatic venue" and a man at the front put his hand up to offer an opinion. Steven Carling said it was the politest heckle ever. Then later he asked Bernard (for that was the polite heckler) what his favourite film was, in order that he could ignore what he actually said and say "Reservoir Dogs" and get a laugh, but Bernard's favourite film is Pulp Fiction, and no-one really laughed because of it being the same director and appearing more like a mistake than an actual joke type situation.
Do you know Stewart Lee? He was a double thing with Richard Herring in Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy (oh, and in the absence of Richard to do the things he normally does he says them himself or pretends the audience has and you can so tell which bits they are) and he co-wrote and directed Jerry Springer the Opera which made him the focus of a right wing evangelical Christian hate campaign and nearly landed him in court for blasphemy. So, he is funny, and intelligent, and Controversial, but in a proper making you think way rather than the new-fangled way of Being Controversial, which is an apparent euphemism for Being Shit in a New Way.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-01 04:24 pm (UTC)Hee! That is beautiful.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-01 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-02 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-02 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-02 03:23 am (UTC)We have a comedy club in a pub round the corner from me so I'm going to look out for him there now as it would be good to see him again.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-02 05:42 am (UTC)