Louis Theroux

My guest today is comedian, director, writer and 41st best stand-up ever, Stuart Lee.

Stuart is one of the most influential and admired stand-up comedians working today, known for his meticulously constructed routines which rely on repetition, repetition, repetition...

That's my joke.

An amusing and ironic sense of superiority to his audience and a kind of wry and laid-back delivery.

The music of his inflections is one of his most appealing assets as a comedian.

A lot of the most famous routines he does are on YouTube.

I've seen him live several times.

He's very comfortable on stage.

He's sometimes compared...

With Ricky Gervais, he came to fame before Ricky and he writes openly in his book about the ways in which he feels maybe he influenced Ricky or that Ricky overlaps with what he does.

Nevertheless, his voice is wholly his own.

Stuart came on the podcast to discuss his current stand-up show, Stuart Lee vs. the Man-Wolf, which involves him in the middle.

This is a spoiler, not really.

He dresses up as a kind of werewolf.

in order to take on the persona of what he describes as a Netflix comedian, someone who is emphatically non-woke, who deals with edgy comedy.

So the whole set is an exploration of the politics of comedy and where a liberal, self-confessed, kind of politically correct comedian like Stewart sits in all of that.

Stewart made his start in comedy as one half of the duo, Lee and Herring, alongside Richard Herring.

Notably, he was part of the creative group that birthed Alan Partridge.

So some LTP cinematic universe synergy.

We kind of need Richard Herring to come on and Armano Iannucci and Patrick Marber.