Political comedy is notoriously hard to get right: on one hand you can end up slightly too earnest, too right-on and not particularly funny (a lot of ’80s alternative comedy). On the other you can appear merely snarky and even hypocritical (The 10 O’clock Show). Part of Lee’s greatness is that he’s obviously politically committed and he’s also brilliantly, disarmingly funny. The one mention of Mrs Thatcher leads to a pleasingly puerile gag about anal sex.
Lee’s latest show has no unifying theme – he candidly informed the Dome that it’s a try-out for an upcoming TV series – but it demonstrates a master at work. Not just a great writer, his laconic slightly world-weary delivery is always strangely captivating, even for those rare moments when something doesn’t work. But even then he can rescue any apparent failure through an inciteful analysis of where the joke went wrong or, more likely, where we the audience failed in our collective duty.
One of the joys of any Lee show is his use of repetition – he’ll come back to a word or phrase almost incessantly until his innocently quizzical tone renders it ridiculous. One of the hits of the evening is a cabby’s observation that ‘these days you just have to say you’re English for them to throw you in jail‘ which forms the only words of a duologue, going back an forth in some crazed conversation, like a surreal verbal duel.
The bit of paper I brought into the show is filled with great gags, inspired word play and playful insights which should appear in standard quotation dictionaries. But writing them down would, of course, only spoil them as no stand-up joke is enhanced by appearing in print. The only solution, dear reader, is to catch Lee at the earliest opportunity.
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