Stewart Lee

And so I suppose...

Why I was able to think I would want to do that is because they were like auteurs, like writers.

I saw myself much more as a writer than a performer.

In fact, I tried to minimize the idea of performance for the first 20 years of doing it.

I tried to not perform really.

So that was a really important part of it.

So a little part of me is always disappointed when I know people use writers.

Sometimes you can sort of tell, because I think at one point Frankie Boyle was using so many different writers that he didn't have a consistent tone of voice.

He would do some stuff that was what we would call woke or progressive and other stuff that was reactionary, and it didn't always all fit together.

So I do think it is an important thing that people are writers, but I'm aware that I'm from a different age.

I'm from a different age that doesn't exist anymore.

I think that's partly why people like to come and see me.

It's a bit like seeing some dying blues guy.

All of us of my age, we saw Sean Hughes in 1990 be the first kind of British or Irish comedian to put together an hour-long show that had a through line.

May you rest in peace.

Yeah, and that was very inspiring.

Then Kitson came along writing these things that were like one-man plays but were still punchy and in-your-face like stand-up.

And so we all aspired to make shows that were a finished piece.

And that's what I... Every show of mine is a finished piece and it's quite difficult often to take bits out of it and do anything else with them because they're...

Whereas now people are trying to generate little bits.