Stewart Lee

In his twenty year career, Stewart has performed on over two continents, written for Steve Coogan and Michael Barrymore, squandered development deals with massive American TV Networks and interviewed Neil Diamond.

He has also written a confusing novel about native American clowns, been denied entry to Spike Milligan's house, appeared in the forgotten double act Lee and Herring, had two TV series cancelled by Jane Root at the BBC and dressed Johnny Vegas as a yeti.

The Early Years

Born on 5 April 1968 in Shropshire, Stewart grew up in the West Midlands, where he attended Solihull School. While studying English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford in the 1980s, he wrote and performed comedy in a revue group called The Seven Raymonds with fellow students including Richard Herring and Emma Kennedy.

Moving to London after university he began performing stand up comedy, rising to greater prominence in 1990, winning the prestigious Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition.

Lee & Herring

Teaming up once more with Richard Herring, Stewart wrote material for BBC Radio 4's On The Hour, which was anchored by comedy god Chris Morris and was notable for the first appearance of Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, for which Lee and Herring wrote much early material.

After a disagreement with the rest of the cast, Lee & Herring did not remain with the group when On The Hour moved to television as The Day Today and they often made blatant statements on their own BBC Radio 1 show Fist Of Fun about certain members of the On The Hour.

Following in the footsteps on The Mary Witehouse Experience, Fist Of Fun was cool, clever, knowing student humour and more importantly a hit, so it too made the jump from radio to TV.

Fist of Fun was on BBC Two for two series, and was followed in 1998 by This Morning With Richard Not Judy, which featured material in a similar vein, but was notable for being broadcast live in a Sunday morning slot.

A change in management cancelled this show and this pretty much brought to an end the partnership with Richard Herring. Throughout the late nineties however he continued performing solo stand-up - the mainstay of his career.

Directing and other stuff

During that time he collaborated with, amongst others, Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh. In fact the first seeds of the Boosh were sown whilst working as as part of Lee's Edinburgh show King Dong vs Moby Dick in which Barratt and Fielding played a giant penis and a whale, respectively.

Lee returned the favour by going on to direct their 1999 Edinburgh show, Arctic Boosh, which remains the template of all their live work.

His first novel, The Perfect Fool, was published in July 2001.

Theatre credits include What Would Judas Do, Boswell and Johnson Late But Live and Pea Green Boat, Interiors with Johnny Vegas for the 2007 Manchester International Festival, and co-writing and directing Richard Thomas' award-winning Jerry Springer The Opera for the National Theatre - for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award.

Controversy

However, this acclaim came with a price and Stewart became the target of hate campaigns by narrow-minded and paranoid fundamentalist religous idiots, which affected him personally and professionally and he disappeared from public eye for several years.

Instead Stewart concentrated on writing features and articles for newspapers like The Sunday Times and magazines including Wire and Good Housekeeping. However he returned to stand up, older, wiser and slightly fatter, but also a superb stand up without peer.

It's no exaggeration to say that there is no one like Stewart Lee on the stand up circuit today, both in terms of material and delivery - he really is a class apart.

In 2007, however Stewart Lee was voted the 41st best stand-up of all time in an official Channel 4 poll, apparently better than Lenny Bruce but not as good as Jim Davidson. He turned this baffling piece of statisitics into his most recent stand up show, which has subsequently been released on DVD.

In 2009 he made Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle for the BBC, which showcased his truly unique and peerless stand up on display in a six-part series, in which Stewart applied his razor-sharp intellect and charming cynicism to subjects including comedy, the economy, television to name a few.

In October 2010 Stewart releases his latest DVD If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One (which you can pre-order here) and will embark on a UK tour of his recent Edinburgh show Vegetable Stew before setting up shop at the The Leicester Square Theatre from 26th October – 18th November.