Topic: Stewart Lee - Content Provider

[Zetetic]

The annoying thing is it needn't be that big. For no obvious reason, iPlayer now serves all HD video at 50fps, even though the vast majority of the videos only contain 25 unique frames per second, so all the files are twice the size they need to be, and streaming them uses up twice the bandwidth it ought to.

I don't think that's how the relationship between bitrate and frames-per-second works for video encoding. They picked a bitrate based on targeting 5 Mbps broadband.

(Repeating the previous frame in H264 is something like 15 bytes?)

[Twed]

TVChaos if you've got access. PM me if you get really desperate.

[gib]

Surprisingly, that was better than I remembered it being.

Yeah, when i saw him i was underwhelmed by the sub-CaB brexit/trump stuff but on telly the other bits did make me laugh. Did you see the southend one they filmed?

[FerriswheelBueller]

I had a look around reddit, looks like someone added it to a google drive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/notapanelshow/comments/92v41u/stewart_lee_content_provider/

[Cursus]

Well impressed by the Les Rallizes Denudes t-shirt.

Garry Bushell (in the Star) disagrees:

Lee wore a Les Rallizes Dénudés T-shirt. The 60s band were renowned for their tediously repetitive instrumental passages and painful use of guitar feedback. Pretentious? Naturally.

Unfunny face of TV comedy

We can’t be sure which part of his marathon snooze-athon appealed most to the BBC.

But I’ll go out on a limb and suggest it was when Lee put the boot into Brexit supporters.

“It wasn’t just racists who voted to leave Europe,” he sneered.

“C***s did as well, stupid f***ing c***s”. Wow. Such wit! Such subtle elegance! Truly he is the Oscar Wilde of our times...

Lardy Lee describes modern Britain as “a chaotic inferno of hate”. The seaside town of Southend, where he recorded the show, is “a hive of racists”.

And non-city people are ignorant “trolls”.

He claims to be playing a caricature of himself, but there’s too much venom in his material for it to be just an act.

Educated at private school and Oxford, Lee represents a privileged world view that sees itself as radical but really isn’t.

He once said that comedy’s job isn’t to protect power structures, but doesn’t seem to have noticed how corrupt, unaccountable, inefficient and institutionally anti-democratic the EU is.

Lee had a dig at me for saying his anti- comedy shtick appealed to the “Metropolitan liberal elite”. But that’s a fact.

The Times newspaper recently – madly – dubbed him the funniest person alive. The establishment seal of approval. That’s how unthreatening he is.

And here’s a scary thing, scarier even than the thought of Big Mo in Victoria’s Secret lace-time baby-doll lingerie: thousands of posers and snobs agree.

Many of them work in TV and share his contempt for everyday people and popular comedy.

Lee hates Fools & Horses and lays into more successful turns (Jimmy Carr, Corden, McIntyre, drivelling goon Russell Howard...), stomping on their DVDs.

He is a Twitter mob made flesh, and over-nourished flesh at that – an intolerant smartarse who despises anyone he disagrees with.

Lee’s act is the comedy of self-indulgence. It isn’t anything most people would recognise as humour. But then it’s not meant for us.

We’re just the mugs whose licence fee money has subsidised his bile-spewing career for decades.

I’d rather neck a Novichok smoothie than suffer that again.

[Hecate]

About to read an article by Garry Bushell on the daily star website



You know what, when you put it like that, I'm off for a smoke, there's fight in me yet.

[bomb_dog]

If Bushell had added about ‘putting his foot through the TV and sending the BBC the bill’, this would be a perfect Viz letter.

It’s almost transparent in its desire to be part of Stu’s next show, though Bushell surely, must be playing a version of himself to appear to be this wilfully ignorant of how Lee’s routine worked.

[The Boston Crab]

Probably the most I've laughed at any comedy in two years. His Carpet show was not very funny.

[DrGreggles]

Garry Bushell (in the Star) disagrees:

Unfunny face of TV comedy

Stew will surely put some of those quotes on his next poster.

[olliebean]

I don't think that's how the relationship between bitrate and frames-per-second works for video encoding. They picked a bitrate based on targeting 5 Mbps broadband.

(Repeating the previous frame in H264 is something like 15 bytes?)

5 Mbps is completely over the top for 720p at 25fps, and lots of people still have broadband that won't be able to handle it and will fall back to the SD streams. They used to have proper 25fps HD streams that were half the size and exactly the same quality, but those are gone now.

[José]

i liked how the existential dread conjured by watching stew deteriorate in front of our very eyes is cleverly incorporated into the material.

[NoSleep]

Garry Bushell (in the Star) disagrees:

Unfunny face of TV comedy

So a cloth-eared cunt dislikes Stewart Lee.

[Petey Pate]

Well impressed by the Les Rallizes Denudes t-shirt.

They were featured on the Japan episode of Baconface's Global Globules - not surprised that Lee is a fan.

http://www.baconfacecanada.com/global-globules/episode-4-japan/

[jobotic]

Stew will surely put some of those quotes on his next poster.

Hope not. Hope he ignores the cunt completely.

[magval]

Is it common to write reviews in bulletpoints?

[DrGreggles]

Is it common to write reviews in bulletpoints?

It's probably common for him to write reviews in crayon.

[New Jack]

When I saw him live he did the 'ask audience for price that turns out unsuitable,£5??' bit that seems, well, a bit

The front sea of DVDs wasn't there at the show I went to, so he must have gone CEX-crazy for this recorded show.

Seemed to have a better flow in the first half here, I seem to remember more Deacon Blue references.

[poodlefaker]

Christ he's looking rough in this. Johnny Vegas has let himself go.

[rasta-spouse]

Put a suit on man!

First 45 minutes were pure auto-pilot. They're his cliches and he can milk them all he likes, but it felt like a substitute for material here. Then there was some stuff about Sky and Russell Howard, and I was proper into it.

I'm wondering whether a portion of the audience actually like the "this gig is a real struggle for me because of you" or "I could do real jokes if I wanted to" shtick. I'm totally bored by it - and only partly because I don't think its true. But maybe for some people it's like a band doing their greatest hits or something, and that's what they came to see. Ok, but it seems to be dominating the show.
 
2nd half much better, and the last 30 minutes of mad ranting was great. No new (stylistic or otherwise) territory explored though, and at this point you could invent a drinking game around his tropes and need help getting home by the end of the show.

The thing I laughed the loudest at: the washing the daughter line, straight outta the working mens club. What am I like?

[Twit 2]

Christ he's looking rough in this. Johnny Vegas has let himself go.

Was it recorded near the end of the run? I saw him in Norwich nearer the end and was quite taken aback by how massively unhealthy he looked. Like, genuinely dead soon. He should quit touring and just write stuff and go jogging in the countryside (isn’t this more or less his plan anyway?).

[Hecate]

I enjoyed it alright and smiled but didn't feel the need to laugh at any point. Maybe taking a break from stand up might be a good idea.

I feel like one of those people, every time he has a new show, there are always a few slightly longer in the tooth fans that'll tell you how bored they are of his shtick and I always think "but this show was easily his best yet!", I think I might have gotten to that point now, or maybe it just depends on what mood you're in when you watch it.

I might watch it again, just to make sure.

[Captain Z]

I saw it live and enjoyed it equally upon rewatching. I've found all of his shows consistently funny, I would say CV Series 3 and 4 are the things I enjoyed least but this felt like a return to form.

I actually got a bootleg audio recording of the show I was at. It was only 4 months ago so not too different from the TV broadcast, but there certainly were a few additional tangents. I feel a bit guilty but at the time people were saying he was never going to record it, and then I didn't want to mention it until it had been released or broadcast. But if anyone was interested I could sort out a link.

[rasta-spouse]

But if anyone was interested I could sort out a link.

Yes please, always interested in the additions and subtractions.

[New Jack]

Was it recorded near the end of the run? I saw him in Norwich nearer the end and was quite taken aback by how massively unhealthy he looked. Like, genuinely dead soon. He should quit touring and just write stuff and go jogging in the countryside (isn’t this more or less his plan anyway?).

This April

Looks fat

[olliebean]

But if anyone was interested I could sort out a link.

I also would be interested in this.

[Salty_fries]

Did anyone notice things that where cut? Admittedly I left the room a few times for a lash, but I don't recall hearing the Folk/Jazz Richard Herring joke, nor him explicitly naming the "20-something comedian" voice as John Robins.

Yeah, when i saw him i was underwhelmed by the sub-CaB brexit/trump stuff but on telly the other bits did make me laugh. Did you see the southend one they filmed?

Naw, I was at the second Norwich date. Watching it live, his usual style of "ooh, these people are laughing but these ones aren't" felt a bit dull, having seen it so much over the years. I don't know why, but the telly version seemed more fun and energised.

Was it recorded near the end of the run? I saw him in Norwich nearer the end and was quite taken aback by how massively unhealthy he looked. Like, genuinely dead soon. He should quit touring and just write stuff and go jogging in the countryside (isn’t this more or less his plan anyway?).

I asked him after the gig and it seems he's making a Radio 4 doc about that band he's touring with. He's also still doing benefit gigs. ^{(click only if you're strong enough to see his new beard)}

[Artemis]

I'm wondering whether a portion of the audience actually like the "this gig is a real struggle for me because of you" or "I could do real jokes if I wanted to" shtick. I'm totally bored by it - and only partly because I don't think its true. But maybe for some people it's like a band doing their greatest hits or something, and that's what they came to see. Ok, but it seems to be dominating the show.

It's certainly tired material at this point, but it makes a certain demographic that enjoy him feel special because in a way it's partly true - there is a sophistication to his comedy. Punchlines that exist in offbeats and realisations; abstract metaphors and a necessity to join dots. My irritation with him is that in some ways he's become what he initially set himself apart from. He'd satirise the 'liberal elite' but now they're his bread and butter and his act is dependent on them, in a way. It's a calling card, and although his act is more nuanced, in that context it isn't much different from Gervais or other comics that establish a relationship with something they ridicule then depend on for their act.

I saw Content Provider pretty early in its run and I'm interested in how the televised version changed, but it's disappointing to hear him lazily indulging in a persona that comics more driven towards fresh material would have put to pasture years previously.

[olliebean]

My irritation with him is that in some ways he's become what he initially set himself apart from. He'd satirise the 'liberal elite' but now they're his bread and butter and his act is dependent on them, in a way.

No, the point is that the "liberal elite" don't exist, except in the minds of people who use the term to insult people like Lee and his fans. He's leaned into it ironically, you see? Aaaaah.

[Schnapple]

Stew's impression of his 'normal fans' and the 'young comedians' are funnier than ever.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Stew's impression of his 'normal fans' and the 'young comedians' are funnier than ever.

Quite agree.

As for the set, there were far more DVDs onstage than when I saw him, but I guess he got a load more in for the recording? I'd be surprised if people haven't been donating their own collections. Why take a bag of ten-year-old Xmas presents to Oxfam when you can dump them on Stew's stage?