Morrisey, Mark Lamarr, Terry Christian, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ray Liotta...
August 2, 2018 12:20 AM   Subscribe

... Todd Carty, Mark Fowler from EastEnders, Ali Campbell, Marty Stuart, General Ratko Mladic, 1930s Tarzan, and Morrisey again, have let themselves go. After being ditched by the BBC, Stewart Lee took a new show, Content Provider on the road. Slightly ironically a filmed version of the show has been broadcast by the BBC and is now available on IPlayer (and no doubt elsewhere). Lee also published a collection of this newspaper columns, slightly confusingly also called, Content Provider. As part of his mandatory digital marketing he talks about it with, Gandalf, Father Christmas, 'a wizard' etc have let themselves go etc... Alan Moore.
posted by fearfulsymmetry (19 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
Tanita Tikeram. Love Stewart Lee. He must be a nightmare to live with though!
posted by runincircles at 12:24 AM on August 2, 2018


Saw this live. It's an excellent show and the baffling narrative journey it takes you on and makes you forget is reconciled in quite a remarkable way.
posted by davemee at 2:03 AM on August 2, 2018


Someone on MF turned me on to Stewart Lee maybe seven years ago? I was an expat bragging about the size of the prawns in Malaysia, walked right into it....

I am so glad that happened. I am just so exactly his demographic target audience and have consumed every little bit of content he has deigned to provide us.

NEW CONTENT BEING PROVIDED! I roll in the muck, hoping Stewart Lee in his bejeweled throne will tell us all what he's been thinking about.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:39 AM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


For those who can't use IPlayer, it might be worth looking on the r/NotAPanelShow subreddit to see this streaming. Looking forward to watching this with some pear cider made from 100% pears.
posted by GamblingBlues at 5:01 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


I just watched this a few days ago, it's great! Bit surreal, very meta, cutting, unapologetic, challenging, but not overly serious and very funny. Quite a few jabs at other British comedians and it was amusing to imagine what their reactions would be like (I think Jimmy Carr would probably laugh very hard and Russell Howard would kind of laugh awkwardly because he thought he is supposed to laugh and Michael McIntyre would be like "whatever dude I'm too busy counting my money".)
posted by like_neon at 6:08 AM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is incredible. I've been waiting so long since Carpet Remnant World and I just mainlined this on the bus home.
posted by Panthalassa at 6:18 AM on August 2, 2018


NEW STEWART LEE
posted by lumpenprole at 8:14 AM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


I get his email newsletter despite it being pretty thoroughly useless if you're not in the UK and had been sad I'd never get to see Content Provider, so thanks for this!
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:49 AM on August 2, 2018


Love Stewart Lee. He must be a nightmare to live with though!

Maybe but his wife seems pretty awesome.
posted by lumpenprole at 9:27 AM on August 2, 2018


I cannot wait to watch this later. His performances, especially Comedy Vehicle (and especially especially season 3) sort of spoiled a lot of other shows that pass for stand-up comedy for me. To fill the void between shows, I sought out his interviews with Alan Moore and Marc Maron, and a few other less comedy-oriented presentations. I think he has mused publicly about taking a long, well-deserved sabbatical, but I'm glad that we have this for now.
posted by vverse23 at 9:45 AM on August 2, 2018


We watched it on the Beeb the other night - it was great indeed and left me feeling sorry for Russell Howard.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 11:03 AM on August 2, 2018


Being a bit out of the cultural loop, I didn't understand about the American Standup doing a set about cakes. Any clues?
posted by Grangousier at 11:34 AM on August 2, 2018


He's referring to American stand-ups who are too lazy to excise USA-specific references from their act when playing the UK. We don't have Twinkies here, mate, so why do you keep going on about them as if we do?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:28 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


Ah, I thought it would be someone specific, as the Twentysomething Standups were. 'Twas ever thus.
posted by Grangousier at 1:03 PM on August 2, 2018


He might have had a specific US stand-up in mind but, if so, I'm afraid I don't know which one.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:29 PM on August 2, 2018


We watched this the other night. I text my brother who lives in that London "Peter Stringfellow's Lord of the Rings." He text back that he saw him do this show live a while ago, met him afterwards, and reminded him of when he and his mates saw him a few years ago and got him to sign a DVD for me. Stewart Lee asked him what to put and his mate Dom said "Up the RA". My brother says he properly laughed at that, which pleased them all greatly (and also he did write it). They were also impressed that he knew how to spell my (Irish) name without prompting. I didn't know any of that til I got the DVD for my Christmas present, and its one of my most prized possessions. When he saw him recently and reminded him of all that he laughed again, so bro was all happy. In short, he wins. But really, we're all winners because we live in the same timeline as Stewart Lee.
posted by billiebee at 3:58 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]


As an American with family in England, I've been lucky enough to see him live 7 or 8 times. I've seen no other comedian working anywhere close to his level. He may joke about it in this special, but he really has kind of ruined other comedians for me.
posted by ericthegardener at 6:21 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


Thanks for this!

Watched it yesterday but must say I think it's not one of his best. Maybe I'm missing a lot as I'm not British and don't speak english as my first language. Anyway, he seems to acknowledge having a problem in these modern times to write a solid show so maybe it isn't just me. Still, it's miles better than any other comedian I tried watching the last couple of years. Can't stand the lot of them to be honest.

Loved the other clips linked here. The interview with Alan Moore was great.
posted by Kosmob0t at 1:59 AM on August 3, 2018


This was the first full performance of his I have seen and I was less than thrilled. Caveat: I am American so a lot of the cultural references went over my head (ironic!) Beyond that, it felt flabby - a tighter 60 minutes would have been great. This seemed more the musings of a famous guy than a well-constructed piece of either stand-up or solo theater. He did plenty of maneuvering in the piece ("this is five star") to prempt such a reaction, but still...
posted by PhineasGage at 4:53 PM on August 4, 2018


« Older Ogni pittore dipinge sè   |   Straight to the 'bool room Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments