Stewart Lee’s angry tirade against the Edinburgh Festival was nothing more than a case of EUI – Emailing Under the Influence!
Last month Lee vented his bitter disdain with a ‘reply all’ email to a press release which announced the festival organisers hosting a public poll to decide who their ‘comedy god’ would be.
In an interview with Den of Geek the comedian said of the incident: ‘Well, that was a complete accident in that I sent this e-mail at 12:15 at night having had three pints. If I’d had two I wouldn’t have been bold enough to send it and if I’d had four I would’ve been asleep’
The poll let voters choose from all past nominees of the Perrier/if.comedy award including the Frank Chickens who Lee mentioned in the rant.
Mentioning the obscure act actually sparked a movement on Twitter, with users voting on mass for them!
‘I only mentioned them as an example off the top of my head as something that’s sort of like art from the past when the awards were a bit more arty, a bit more cabaret based and if you have a poll like that, they’re exactly the kind of thing that doesn’t get mentioned because no one knows who they are.
‘Funnily enough, if it meant that the corporate funding thing ended up trickling down to them it’d be really funny, because it would’ve done what corporate sponsorship was supposed to, rather than going to somebody who’s already a multi-millionaire.’
You can read Stew's explanation of his actions and the subsequent fall out in his own article on Chortle as this location.
Stewart Lee’s Vegetable Stew show is at The Stand in Edinburgh from 4th – 30th August.
Copyright : Comedy Central UK