Stewart Lee: The Audience is the Problem

Stuart Lee is not like most comedians, he is pretentious, deluded, condescending and narcissistic. He has a voice best suited to meditative relaxation tapes and the aura of a man about to give a particularly aggressive lecture. In this video I want to focus on one thing that captures Lee's approach. stand up and that's the way he treats the

audience

. Stuart Lee doesn't like

audience

s, in fact he despises them. They continually get in his way, undermine him, and ultimately fail to appreciate his genius. In this way, Lee throws one of Lee's guiding principles of hilariously and mercilessly rising up into the air and it's fascinating to watch Lee blame and belittle the audience while he silently manipulates them to his will.

Thank you so much. Lee has been influenced by many comedians throughout his career, including Simon Munnary, Jerry Sadowitz. kevin mcaleer johnny vegas and his double act partner richard herring, however, the comedian who made lee want to become a comedian and who can tell us most about lee's approach to comedy was and is the selfless alternative comedian ted chippington whom Lee saw supporting the fall in 1984. Ted came out, stood absolutely still, and told more or less the same joke over and over again in a monotone voice, provoking an intense hostile reaction from the audience. He was and remains to this day the coolest thing I've ever seen as Lee.

He notices that people were paralyzed with laughter or furious with irritation. He was completely transfixed and my heart was racing as I realized that stand-up could be anything you wanted, you didn't even have to look like you were enjoying it. I didn't think I could ever be an artist because I thought you had to be confident and move and look like you were having fun and I wasn't that kind of person and then when I saw Ted I realized he didn't have to be any of those things, I didn't even have to have anything. The interesting thing about Chippington is that he apparently had no desire to be on stage, he wasn't trying to seem likeable or even to appeal to the train stations furthest from here. mile said a mile answered a mile in general terms I couldn't be too sure you know you didn't think it was funny so well, I appreciate it or as Shippington says no, there wasn't, I don't know if I really did it It was just someone who did something that you know for no particular reason.

I guess he's really cool. You can see this foundation in almost everything Lee does. Lee has no interest in winning over the audience. In fact, the character Lee plays believes it's the audience's privilege to be in it. In your company, this seems like a pretty terrible recipe for winning over an audience, but it works, even if it's counterintuitive, but actually what I've managed to do is create a kind of character on stage that feels better than the audience and So if they don't seem to like you, it makes you even happier and more emboldened, and once people realize that their approval is irrelevant, they often relax and start telling you what Lee has done.

It's that he has taken the indifference of Chippington's act and become agitated. in a kind of smug superiority and by presenting himself as a politically correct, holier-than-now lefty smug, he gives himself a lot of room to play, as Lee assumes that he is better than the audience and also doesn't have to pander to the audience's expectations. he. in fact, much of their comedy comes from how blatantly they oppose it, emphasizing how little they have in common, you know, I haven't noticed anything about their lives, they're not of my interest, and ridiculing mainstream comedians for their high emptiness. .

Power-focused observational comedy on a content provider where Lee is undeniably at his most unhinged and mentally unstable, or openly insulting the audience and that's why I'm up here like a god and you're there down in the dark like pigs in an Essex. breaks down or says that I would prefer that all the seats were sold but no one showed up, that is my dream and the empty room was completely sold out, which would eliminate the main

problem

of all my work, which is the audience's continued inability to recognize his genius, a quote that follows norma mcdonald is the smartest person in the room pretending to be the dumbest, the implication is that the comedian who places himself in a lower position of power will find it easier to make the audience laugh, which What Lee does is gleefully upend this convention.

His boss, Stuart Lee, declares that he is the smartest person in the room, but takes it to such a manic extreme that the public laughs at his deceptive sense of self-importance, the personality type. of the character, who is kind of an exaggerated version of me he thinks he's right anyway and he thinks what he's doing is good and he thinks there's some kind of

problem

with the audience for not understanding him so strangely, yes I'm falling badly now to nothing, which can still happen, I can start to stay. in a character like this stand-up that you would think was the audience's fault, now I never feel bad in my head, even if I feel bad, as long as I do what comedian Stuart Leader would do, which is Blame the audience and to think that they're not ready to receive their shiny ears, then it makes me laugh inside, so as long as it's true to the character, I feel like that's not the case. failed it's quite funny to think that Lee's ego is so inflated that he would sooner blame the audience for the failure of a joke than himself and you can see that Lee cares about this trait for maximum comedic effect.

Often it is not the joke that makes you laugh. which Lee will intentionally set up to fail pirate adventure castle activity center on my foot, but instead the long condescending explanation of how the audience is misunderstanding his genius, okay, castle activity center of pirate adventures on my foot, now my foot, that's a disdainful figure of speech. It's all my foot, we've all used it, yeah okay, but why it's funny here is because perhaps the cleverest way Lee blames the audience is how he divides them up in each special, since comedian Lee usually divides the room in sections. a small group of diehard fans at the front, although even they are not above reproach from Lee, the kind of people like me and a weaker section at the back who don't understand what they are doing, all here for the rest of the night.

You're on board, you're going to be the A team, that's fine and you won't care if I don't play much here. I'm going to focus mainly on the F team, in that corner, don't clap because you're. better than the right teammate for some of you, it's just a lack of random seating, right? As Lee points out, by dividing the audience between those who get it and those who don't, usually, in the end, those who do not want to be part. of the doers and gradually formed a strong enough coalition of the willing, but you will notice how this is also a distraction tactic by turning the audience against each other.

Lee is removed from the equation. The problem isn't Lee's ability to Don't Tell a Joke, but rather a lethargic audience that simply needs to try a little harder if you're sitting next to an f and they're laughing a little, right? You can come up and squeeze his hand a little and we'll bring it to you. Also, I won't leave anyone behind, I swear, taken to the extreme, Lee will make a joke and then infer from the different answers that the room is completely unworkable. Lee is presented as a tragic figure condemned to perform before an audience that cannot perform.

Like the only thing he doesn't mention is that he was the one who divided them in the first place. Do you see how impossible it is to work in this room? Because no, you can't because down here I don't even need to do it. Finish that joke up there they thought, oh yeah, samples of jokes that will be the same as samples of cardboard, samples of what the jokes could be like, but up there you just say, oh, why is he talking about cardboard? What is it? It's actually not feasible. It's very because down here this is like a vision of this is what it could be What's starting to become clear is that Lee is not so much interested in playing for the audience but in manipulating them to his will like a vengeful conductor seeking revenge against the very audience that paid to see him there is a wonderful passage in his book as he describes a joke about watching the funeral of Pope John Paul II or the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles the way it's difficult it's not it's imagine which of those two events would have been the more depressing to witness the public veneration of a shriveled old corpse.

Done well, the joke depends on the audience understanding how this type of joke is usually structured, the idea is that the audience predicts the punchline before Lee says it in a funny way, however, Lee points out that sometimes if the audience does not would have anticipated the correct ending to the joke, would deliberately spoil it by saying the public veneration of a shriveled old corpse or the wedding of prince charles and camilla parker bowles even lee admits i don't know why he would do this, it seems extremely self-indulgent and useless, let's hope the viewers at home are operating with the same lightning reflexes.

I love the implication that Lee would rather sabotage his joke and not laugh than go along with it. ended with a joke that he felt was beneath him and is a pretty telling statement of Lee's career, any signs of traditional jokes having more or less disappeared in favor of, as Lee says, creaky repetition, embarrassing silences and passive monotony -aggressive, anyone who saw Lee's rap singer joke. you'll know what I'm talking about, yeah you've seen it on the rap singers, yeah you've seen it, you've seen the rap singers at the top of the pops that used to appear there, right?

The rappers, the rap singers are at the top of the pops you've seen them there. This is not to say that Lee can't write jokes, but rather that he will use what seem like jokes to engage the audience in an ongoing game. of trickery and trickery Lee often feeds the audience a traditional joke or prank and then laughs at them for laughing at the same joke she just served them, she would be the first to admit that there was actually no pressing need, but what you will find do you like that dean, i'm charlie chaplin or did i deliberately lead the audience into a dead end before attacking them at the last second yes, do you like that change he sounded german it turned out he was spanish it's not impossible he could have been born in spain trained in germany come here to work maybe it's not such a funny situation after all you have to be careful some of the jokes are traps they're not meant to be laughed at you went into it read take the audience's knowledge on how is supposed to be stand-up for work and he uses it to cruelly subvert his expectations as an audience member, you're not even sure if you should laugh for fear that Lee will turn your own laughter against you, so I left and I gathered the last four that are.

Well, honey, it's great, you know what I probably won't be able to give you the show you want? Lee even has a technique she refers to as killing the punchline where she will make it obvious what the punchline of a joke is. be in an attempt to get the audience to focus on his use of rhythm and language, although even then he still finds a way to blame these extended routines on the audience's lack of concentration - you know, every time you look at your watch , I start again. If we wanted to be technical about it, what Lee participates in is a theatrical technique known as Brechtian alienation, I want you to laugh in spite of me, not because of me, it is an example of the theatrical practice known as Brechtian alienation, it is incredibly High-risk action strategy that very few people seem to appreciate, also known as the distancing effect.

Brechtian alienation is where a performer will seek to disrupt what is happening on stage by pointing out the artificiality of her own performance. It's basically about making the audience hyper-aware of what's going on. what happens on stage is not real, that things are not happening in the moment in an attempt to create a distance between the audience and the performer, as brec states, the goal of the artist is to appear strange and even surprise the audience ; he manages it by looking strangely. of himself and his work in film or theater, Brechtian alienation is often shown through bare or minimal sets, obvious and telegraphed lighting changes, characters breaking the fourth wall or addressing the camera directly, and the plot It is spoiled beforehand if this does not sound.

Bells with Stuart Lee You probably haven't seen it enough. There are about five minutes left. It's around 10. I'll repeat the phrase Carpet Remnant World with some music and that will give the illusion of structuring Lee's entire performance. The strategy is more or less a tightrope act of Brechtian proportions. He is constantly poking holes in both his stage persona and the artifice of his performance. He will come on stage with his hand full of notes that immediately rob his performance of any spontaneity. Russell Brand andDan. brown celebrity hardcovers and if you're close to the front now you can see I'm just doing the hand, his hands are talking about what's in my hand, he'll use props or pieces of paper and notice how to incorporate deliberate artifice into a performance that is The effort to give the illusion of spontaneity is what makes it fun, sometimes going a step further by reading something the audience assumes to be true before later revealing that what they had read was blatantly false.

The interesting thing about those four quotes in the second one I think the interesting thing about those four quotes is that of those four quotes only two of them were made up by me, if you prefer a softer comedian, Lee even goes on stage with rock music and a curtain of smoke live at the Apollo only for the smoke to go everywhere and Lee has to restart the show twice now that all the smoke is gone. and I don't have, I'll go and then I'll come out and talk straight, I'll go and immediately talk about forgetting this and anyway and I was supposed to film that anyway, it was up there so it won't even register anything, it's a waste of time;

In other words, Lee wants the audience to see the mechanics of his performance and points it at us with such blatant conviction. who wants the audience to laugh at it anyway for the willing audience the question is not whether they are going to be manipulated but how and how far they are willing to go Lee it's you tonight I too have learned what I'm saying now and written that and this now I have written that alone and this just going like this I have learned that I have written that and this now I have learned this and this and this now and this I just go, I wrote that I learned that everything is written and I learned that this is not saying anything and talk about treating your audience without respecting how half the time Lee doesn't even talk directly to the audience, but instead tells it how it is.

By manipulating them down the barrel of a camera, you talk directly to the camera and it's much lower than you are, well, I think what the director helped me do there by literally talking down to the camera is that he visually represented the area of ​​condescension that arises from everything I say lee uses cameras to further distance the audience from what is happening on stage, often turning away from the audience in the middle of a joke to address the audience at home or provide an autopsy on the joke you just told four series now I've been doing this right obviously I chose to do it this way I'm not mentally ill and another thing uh you're okay buddy you're okay the audience isn't even Worthy of Lee's full attention and the laughs they come from the way they casually leave them aside to watch from the wings while Lee discusses the joke he just told as if they're not even there, okay, they're laughing at it, do you think that's it?

Okay, that joke, I don't know because it makes you laugh, but it kind of breaks the truth of the story, don't you know what I mean? Even the interview sections in the comedy vehicle and content provider add another layer of Brechtian alienation here. Lee's performance is broken down and analyzed by a series of increasingly harsh interviewers and keeps the viewer very aware of the inventions within Lee's performance, so for the first episode in particular, I have made a special effort to try Include as many jokes as you can. okay, so how many, how many four, I think it's four, it could be three, but there are four, which is four more than in the first series.

A perfect example appears on the content provider while he talks to an audience member in a supposed improv piece five. pounds, have you seen this before, have you tried to upload this for the love of God tonight? of all, it's not five pounds, no, you panicked, right?, it's three, five pounds, it's three pounds, sixty-seven, however, just before this, leeward states, every night is exactly. the same thing happens all things happen the same every night no place is different from the other and the show goes rhythm to rhythm the same thing every night, he even acknowledges how he fabricated the improvisation to fail by nodding at us through the rear camera in the middle of the routine, so I'd be very surprised if this makes the edit, but if it does, then it's a camera to put it in there, so I don't think you could ask for a better description of Lee's approach. stand up than to say that sometimes the audience isn't even in on the joke and that for some Lee's flagrant violation of their expectations is understandably a step too far; in fact, Lee often seems to be provoking the audience on purpose and will go on with these long personal stories filled with specific characters and details only to reveal that the story was completely made up now that the story about Richard Hammond is not true.

Orkan taught entire routines about the failure of a prank that he had orchestrated to fail in the first place. bad audiences like you know you're as good as murdered robin williams will lay the bones of their performance so bare that there will be nothing left to hang for the pretentious metatextual self-aware of what's wrong with proper jokes, that's what I say to myself and even then he will continue to gleefully belittle those who simply can't stand it anymore like going out there everyone has a spot in their calf. I didn't pay to listen to a 20-minute fictional story set in a library, perhaps the most important thing for The Takeaway and the truth of Brechtian alienation in general is that Lee doesn't want the audience to sit back and relax or possibly Even enjoy the performance, but you want them to spend time analyzing and dissecting their performance to see the deeper meaning within it as we often ignore. describes the lack of realism of the story distances the audience from it and they can now examine it from a critical point of view instead of simply relating to it on an emotional level or as Lee says, I'm arrogant but I've chosen to be arrogant to achieve a comic effect. and I hope this creates a distancing effect between the public and me.

I hope you admire the comedy, but I'd rather you didn't enjoy the show just because you think you like me as a person. It seems cheap, I hope the public doesn't. I really like myself as a person and I'm not interested in who I am. The real joy of watching Lee is accepting that you are a victim in his game. He wants you to enter an arena where you're always three steps behind and even the truth is at stake, he's the comic equivalent of a psychotic cat letting a mouse squirm under his paw or putting a hamster on a wheel just to See how far you can run and who doesn't want to be a hamster from time to time.

What you've done is develop a system that consciously operates the levers that make people laugh using any means possible besides saying something funny. Yes, I know you make them uncomfortable, you make them feel a little scared, you make them feel nervous and that's the only reason they laugh, but what's the last thing they would expect something funny to be said? And that's what I've tried to do in this series over and over, over and over again. I've just tried to make a joke that will make people laugh and you can see the fear and confusion on their faces.

They are saying: What is this? What is happening now? This is a pretty complicated concoction because I'm not sure if he's conceited or psychotic, yeah.