Stewart Lee

Yeah, everything's called an influencer.

You're probably an influencer and you don't even know.

I know, I know.

Yeah, a squashed Albert Finney.

I quite like that.

But often, I remember when I was in the double act with Richard Herring, we had a review, ugly young men presenting drivel, which I kind of liked.

That was your poster, wasn't it?

Yeah, if I was thinking that now, that would be a title for a tour.

What's funny is sometimes when a critic thinks, aha, nailed him, and actually they've just described exactly what you were trying to do.

He comes across as a supercilious, self-involved, woke left-winger for whom being right is more important than the truth.

Well, yeah, that's kind of... That's your stick, isn't it?

Would you go on, would you be a traitor?

Well, I think I'd be good on traitors, right?

But I think it boosts you up to a whole level of recognition.

I mean, you're talking about people that don't know who you are and now please, they say you're a Ghibli grandpa.

Yeah.

I find it very difficult being stopped and spoken to by strangers all the time, even though they usually say delightful things.

It's sort of quite traumatic to be interrupted every 30 minutes when you're looking at a painting or trying to read.

You have to kind of recalibrate yourself.

And people are always really nice, but I wouldn't want to be... I've judged it brilliantly that I'm just about famous enough to make a living at a level that I like, but any more, I think I would go crazy.