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I thought that was pretty awful personally. Just because you acknowledge something being unfunny it doesn't then make it funny to spend five minutes playing out that exact gag, which is precisely what happened with the apple sketch. Plus I find myself coming to the conclusion that the reason so many of his jokes involve extended repetition of phrases is that he just doesn't have very much good material and so is stretching it out to fill the show - if a joke's funny once, it can be funny over and over again, right? Was that the last episode? I don't think I'll be watching if there's any more - between this and the recent Red Dwarf my fond memories of early 90's comedy are currently being stamped all over. |
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle • Page 8
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Was there no red button feature this week? I can't find it anywhere. -
I dunno if the Red Button got done over cos they changed the episode from what was listed (apparently).
Glad I kept watching, it was good this week, apple sketch did go on a bit but I know what he was trying to do. Half an hour of this is half an hour less Gavin & Stacey / Tittybangbang, so I'm up for boosting the viewing figures. -
RedboX 2,427 posts
Seen 12 years ago
Registered 19 years agocubbymoore wrote:
Was there no red button feature this week? I can't find it anywhere.
Have you tried pressing your red button?
/sad trombone sound. -
octo 980 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoIt's a stylistic choice. I find the repetition dull. I find the comedy interesting and at times extremely funny. -
speedofthepuma 13,428 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years agoI tried to get tmy wife interested in this last night. This was the wrong episode to attempt that, the first 10 - 15 mins or so is realy very pretentious and generally crap. -
Fizzog 4,108 posts
Seen 10 years ago
Registered 13 years agoBuntyHoven wrote:
This week's was funnier for me simply because I hadn't seen the material already on DVD.
I do enjoy his snide remarks, he always delivers them with suitable contempt, e.g. Jack Dee's sitcom.
If there was a point to his five minute, 70s-style apple sketch then it went over my head.
Was it just a tribute or was he having a go at Monty Python's laborious lists and forced anarchy to end tediously indulgent sketches.
Did you not notice the woman with the jazz instrument? It was obviously a reference to the guy proclaiming himself as the "jazz comedian" and was experimenting with the absurdity of someone performing comedy in a jazz style. -
It was about breaking the fourth wall, and a complete mental breakdown, almost a rant in sketch form if you will, at the sort of allegorical social commentary comedy that he had already lambasted against with the quip "you'd like to see that wouldn't you?" because it pretends to be making a point but at the end it's packaged into something people can relate to because it's comfortably formulaic, and so the point stays comfortably unresolved and practically pointless. It's a very particular point he's making, probably a pretty snobbish point as well to a lot of people, because most people appear to have not really understood it at all, but it seems that Lee wants this. Bizarrely, I might add. It seems he's got to a point where he either doesn't really care what most people think, and as long as a few people get it that's fine, or he just really gets off on getting up peoples noses and saw this as an opportunity to do that. The whole series I mean, it seems like he's practically out to sabotage his tv career for some reason. Perhaps as a get back to the bbc for all the shit they've shovelled his way. -
chopsen 21,958 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 16 years agocubbymoore wrote:
I took comedy at university
That some kind of joke degree?
I didn't get the Bill Hicks bit. Can someone clever explain it to me? -
chopsen 21,958 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoBTW, cubby, did you catch the documentary he did about clowns for radio 4? He seems to view comedy, and clowning particularly, to have a kind of social role in challenging social conventions to the point of actually just being unpleasant and not even *necessarily* funny. I think it kind of informs his stand-up style over the last few years.
edit: bollocks, new page. Can someone explain the Bill Hicks sketch? -
brokenkey 11,128 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 20 years agoThe Bill Hicks thing - a long hair American comedian had one joke "what is it about mice, they are just gay rats" (or something along those lines). -
I haven't seen this week's yet - surely he didn't say that about Bill Hicks? -
Jeepers 16,616 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoChopsen wrote:
BTW, cubby, did you catch the documentary he did about clowns for radio 4? He seems to view comedy, and clowning particularly, to have a kind of social role in challenging social conventions to the point of actually just being unpleasant and not even *necessarily* funny. I think it kind of informs his stand-up style over the last few years.
Which was done better and smarter in The Comedians by Trevor Griffiths.
Which is an ace play, by the way. -
steellam 1,076 posts
Seen 5 hours ago
Registered 16 years agootto wrote:
I haven't seen this week's yet - surely he didn't say that about Bill Hicks?
I took it to be a comment on the way Bill Hicks is remebered and how he is the cool answer for who is your favourite ever comedian.
If someone dies early it can elevate them to a higher level of status that would have either never been attained or ruined by material that might not be up to the same standard written in later life.
I think it fitted in with the full program, him following it up with the comment that he has unfortunately lived long enough to start writing bland observational comedy (travellodge etc). -
OK, context is key I guess, but there are good reasons why Bill Hicks is 'the cool answer' - sometimes the cool answer is the right answer. -
He did do the same jokes over and over though. -
Yeah, Hicks has become in death what he would've hated when he was alive. -
BuntyHoven 106 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 14 years agoThanks for your insight on the apple sketch and your thoughts on where he's coming from in general, cubbymoore.
Helped clear things up for me anyway. -
Heh, s'alright! I did write a 5,000 word essay on him after all, glad it sort of came to some use later on in my life. -
steellam wrote:
I've only just got around to seeing the 'Comedy' episode and there was no reference to Bill Hicks that I could make out. He was clearly having a go at Dennis Leary.
otto wrote:
I haven't seen this week's yet - surely he didn't say that about Bill Hicks?
I took it to be a comment on the way Bill Hicks is remebered and how he is the cool answer for who is your favourite ever comedian.
If someone dies early it can elevate them to a higher level of status that would have either never been attained or ruined by material that might not be up to the same standard written in later life.
I think it fitted in with the full program, him following it up with the comment that he has unfortunately lived long enough to start writing bland observational comedy (travellodge etc). -
speedofthepuma 13,428 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years agoDoesn't he call him "Hill Bicks" or something? -
President_Weasel 12,355 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 17 years agoConsidering Leary stole Hicks's schtick it would be difficult to tell who he was having a go at. But given the comedian in question had glasses, and was called Hill Bicks or something like that, I suspect it was Hicks it was aimed at. -
Well firstly the guy looked and sounded exactly like Leary; and secondly, the fact that Leary stole a lot of Hicks' material but *still* managed to base his routine on dull observational stuff about coffee means that I think he's the target. The only reference to Hicks that I could see was the death angle. I guess the target was a composite generic white working class American stand-up with elements of various people in it but I really didn't interpret Lee's routine as having a go at Hicks, rather the contrary. -
figgis 7,721 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years agoI thought of Leary too. -
toy_brain 1,255 posts
Seen 8 months ago
Registered 17 years agoDidnt Hicks go through the whole TV show thing where he was told he couldn't do a certain joke and his section got yanked because of it?
I'm pretty sure I read that in his Biography.
Or did Leary also have that happen to him?
Seemed pretty targeted at Hicks to me like.
Also, the death angle. Hicks spent a lot of his life slagging off religion and smoking. When he got close to death he both quit the fags and found God. So I'd say Stuart Lee was going for that whole 'killed by the thing that you joked so much about' angle. -
It was definitely Bill Hicks, the guy was was called Dyl Spinks, 1961 - 1994, went onto Letterman and had his last appearance cut, the thing he constantly joked about he died of.... it was rather specific. -
BillMurray 9,736 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 13 years agoIt's on now folks. -
Easily the best of them, really really liked that. His point about how you have to simplify stuff like Islam in order to get laughs was brilliant, he was channelling similar points in his 90's comedian show which was probably his career highlight. He's at his best when he's talking about religion, both in terms of what he does performance wise and also the material, he's at his most inspired in my opinion.
Plus he got Jerry Sadowitz on tv, that alone is an accomplishment. Almost no-one will let him on these days. Unless he's mellowed out recently, which I doubt. Hopefully. -
StarchildHypocrethes 33,974 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 17 years agoWould definitely agree that, bar the consistently shit sketches, last nights was the best yet. -
Jerry Sadowitz? Really? Bloody hell I missed it! He's a hero, he is. I used to live round the corner to his magic shop .gif)
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