Stewart Graham Lee is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director best known for being one half of the ’90s comedy duo Lee and Herring and for co-writing and directing the critically-acclaimed and controversial stage show, Jerry Springer – The Opera. A Channel 4 survey named Lee as the 41st best stand-up in the world.

Stewart’s recent TV show, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, received a less than glowing review in the London magazine Time Out. It described Lee as ‘fat’ and his performance as “positively Neanderthal, suggesting a jungle-dwelling pygmy, struggling to coax notes out of a clarinet that has fallen from a passing aircraft”. The poster for his 2009 Edinburgh show contained the line “His whole tone is one of complete smug condescension”. The thing is, he wrote both quotes himself. If it’s subversion you’re after, Stewart is the man.
We meet at Edinburgh’s Hispaniola restaurant, a homage to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. It’s all doubloons, and pirates and skeletons and muskets. I imagine Stewart will be scathing about the naffness of the setting but he’s not that predictable. He’s delighted with the place, reckoning his little boy would love it.
So why would you describe your tone as complete smug condescension?
“Smug condescension, why use that quote? Say up here on a Friday or Saturday night, God bless them, working class Edinburgh couples take a punt. What they want, when they’ve sorted out the babysitter and paid twenty quid, is what they expect. They don’t want to see a man lying on the floor with his back to them talking about David Jason. If you put one thing on your poster to say this is annoying and pretentious, they might go see something they prefer. Plus I knew other comedians would find it funny.”
Speaking of other comics, I mention Irish comedian Jarlath Regan and his complaint that every review he gets in the UK blathers on about his “twinkly-eyed charm” or “blarney-soaked patter”. “Well, you have worked that a little,” laughs Stewart, “I’m not trying to get in with you here but Ireland is the best place in the world for stand-up. The average Irish stand-up is much better than the average English stand-up and about a million times better than the average American one. The things I worry about here... Am I going on too much? Is this turning into a story? Are there too many words? These are considered positives in Ireland.”
Kevin McAleer is supporting Lee in Ireland. Is he a fan?
“It should be the other way around. One of the reasons I did a TV show is that there’s not much of the work of Kevin McAleer and Simon Munnery and others that I love preserved. I am worried about passing through without a legacy. Although I don’t mean like Tony Blair and Frank Skinner – guilty Catholics who hit 50 and start worrying about how they’ll be remembered.”
So, is comedy dangerous? Can it make a difference?
“I don’t know. For me the first thing is – is it funny? It’s obviously easier to be funny about stuff you care about. The making of me as a stand up was Jerry Springer – The Opera. Being part of a news story, then being able to write stand up about the news when you were the news was quite a breakthrough. It seemed important. When people try and stop you performing it seems like a real privilege to be up there. I’m not someone like Mark Thomas. Not a campaigner.”
You’re not going to be the Bono of stand-up?
“No, I’m not a campaigning sort of person. I suppose in this show, the political dimensions are: isn’t it interesting that Top Gear and the tabloids are allowed to say certain kinds of offensive things and yet give the impression that their freedom of speech is stifled all the time?”
What ambitions have you left?
“Everything I ever hoped has happened. I know and work with the comics I loved as a teenager. I’ve got my lovely job writing record reviews for a newspaper. I’ve worked on a big theatre success.”
And you’ve made a TV show?
“Well, yes. Without sounding too mercenary, one of my real ambitions is to sustainably convert all this critical acclaim into some way of paying a mortgage.
Most artists I really like don’t make a living. So I feel really privileged – to the point where I suspect it probably means I’m not really good.”
Stewart then cackles, pirate-like, for a good ten seconds, leading me to believe he knows exactly how good he is. Then he cackles some more.

Stewart Lee plays the Town Hall, Galway (October 25), Vicar Street, Dublin (October 26) and Ulster Hall, Belfast (October 27).