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_Q&A: Stewart Lee

Incisive, intelligent and incendiary, Lee has a reputation for slaughtering sacred cows. Spending his childhood in Solihull, it was seeing legendary West Midlands comic Ted Chippington that inspired Lee to first start performing. Since then he’s become a cult figure thanks to ‘90s BBC show Fist Of Fun and outraged Christians with Jerry Springer: The Opera. He makes a triumphant return home as part of the comedy festival, performing his widely acclaimed new show 41st Best Stand-Up Ever.

The title 41st Best... comes from your ranking in a recent TV poll. What was your initial reaction?

I just thought it was strange. I did think 41 was a good number for me, because I’m probably the best known comedian that people have never heard of. In light of that, stalling outside the top 40 seems really funny. It sounds really arrogant saying you’re the 41st best ever, but it’s also kind of pointless.

So the ranking didn’t swell your heart with pride?

Try and remember that when the public are asked to vote for the funniest thing on television, they always choose Del Boy falling through the bar on Only Fools And Horses. So it’s not much of an accolade to be approved of by a public that, let’s face it, know nothing! [laughs]. You’re seen as a comic who’s never ‘sold out’... It’s very easy not to sell out when you’re not given the opportunity to! [laughs] Most of the things that happen to me are actually because of misfortune, but they get mistaken as acts of charity. My last stand-up show, 90s Comedian, had to be released on DVD by a small independent group because the management company I was with back then couldn’t find anyone who would touch it. So it’s not really altruism on my part.

A lot of modern comics get accused of using irony to disguise racist and sexist humour.Do you think that’s true?

I agree with that actually. I’m 40 next year, and when you say to young people that the Conservatives in the late 1960s fought one election in Smethwick under the banner heading of ‘If You Want A N***** For A Neighbour, Vote Labour’, they don’t believe you. But it did happen. Political correctness has saved us from a lot of those things, but younger people forget that and see it as an infringement on their rights.

Why do you think these kind of comics have started appearing now?

I think because the government tried to stop us saying certain things. You had the Religious Hatred Bill, and then you had a government committee investigating why young Muslims felt disaffected, who were told the two things off the agenda were religious education and British foreign policy in Iraq – which are obviously the main causes! I do think you’ve got to have some reason why you’re talking about these things. An Asian comic talking about how he felt after the 7/7 London bombings is different to Jim Davidson doing it.

Interview by Robert Paulson for What's On, September 2007. No reproduciton without prior permission. www.icbirmingham.co.uk

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Stewart Lee