Stewart Lee’s new comedy programme is excellent, if the first episode is anything to go by. Each week Lee addresses a different topic and this week it was books.
OK – so this ticked all the boxes with me, with Dan Brown, Russell Brand, “Tragic Lives” and Chris Moyles all targeted for their books. Moyles in particular had a thorough lambasting. I once picked up Moyles’ first tome in WH Smith and realised by virtue of the fact that I was flicking through it, I’d pretty much read the whole book in ten minutes in the shop (I should quickly explain that I was looking for a reference to a friend – I certainly wouldn’t have given it ten minutes of my valuable time that could have otherwise been spent washing what’s left of my hair otherwise).
The standup was broken up with short sketches featuring people like Kevin Eldon and Simon Munnery (credited for two book jokes!).
After it had finished, we learnt that behind the red button, the show’s producer, Armando Iannucci interviewed Lee about the very show we’d just watched. This was a pretty good 10-15 minute watch too. I’d link to it on the BBC site, but sadly it doesn’t seem to be online. I stand to be corrected but I did have a good look and search.
[UPDATE] The Stewart v Armando episode is now available via the iPlayer.
(Incidentally – the BBC homepage really is awful. It’s just not easy to get to the BBC Two page from www.bbc.co.uk – you go there and try it. Honestly. What’s the quickest route? There’s no “Explore the BBC” button so I had to go to the mini schedule and click from there, two thirds of the way down the page.)
I’ll look forward to these in coming weeks, although I’ll be upset if I can record the main programme but not the Iannucci interviews.
All this talk of Iannucci reminds me that I’m really looking forward to seeing In The Loop when it opens on 17 April. I should get The Thick Of It DVDs in readiness, although I find it curious that BBC Worldwide hasn’t released a boxset of the first series and the specials.