My conclusion: Lee and Herring would be better off as a double act.

[rimbaud]

Watching a selection of YouTube videos from various eras, what became strikingly clear was how funny Fist of Fun and TMWRNJ were despite the dated jokes.  Herring really is an extremely funny sketch show performer and jokes don't overstay their welcome by 15 minutes.  Consider the Lily is a stone cold classic.

In comparison, Herring's solo stuff is fairly amusing but I wouldn't want to base my livelihood on it, and Stewart Lee is brilliant until he lazily decides to string 5 minutes out to 20, knowing he can get away with it.  It's especially odd when Lee does the Herring voice "Stu! Stu!" etc. 

Another advantage for Lee is that he looks like the taller thinner one, despite being short and stocky.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

They'd be quite good as a triple act.  Stu could split himself in two, with both his resultant selves losing weight as a result, and one doing the repetition-long-winded stick and another doing shorter, more discrete one-liners and short gags, covering both bases.

[RedRevolver]

I find it amusing that Stew used to be the fit (colloquial, not proper, sense) one and now Rich is.

I also find it amusing that my sister is basically Bridget Christie and used to love Stew and it's very much a case of "If only she were ten years older".

But, er, yeah, to be on topic, I think they should too. I think Rich thinks this also, but very much in a "Stew definitely does not think this" sort of way.

Doesn't Stewart spend all of his time with Alan Moore now? Maybe they could do a double act together. Probably some kind of Discordianesque slaughter of chickens I should imagine.

[Default to the negative]

If we're looking at them in their modern incarnations, I don't see a good fit. Stewart is all superior, aloof detachment. Richard is all intense, agitated neediness. How do you make those two fit?

[Default to the negative]

Doesn't Stewart spend all of his time with Alan Moore now? Maybe they could do a double act together.

That sounds like the worst thing ever. Just imagine all the smug knowing backslapping between these self-professed 'outsider artists'. Insufferable!

[bgmnts]

That sounds like the worst thing ever. Just imagine all the smug knowing backslapping between these self-professed 'outsider artists'. Insufferable!

Their thing they did about Winston Churchill actually being a pig and exploring his bunker was pretty funny.

[garbed_attic]

I very much agree with this but I also wonder if it was just the joyous anarchy of youth.

[phantom_power]

The original poster's premise may well be true but I don't think Lee is lazy in stretching out his material. It tales a lot of skill, technique and most of all balls to do that.  The skill is in making it look easy and natural

[Steven]

The original poster's premise may well be true but I don't think Lee is lazy in stretching out his material. It tales a lot of skill, technique and most of all balls to do that.  The skill is in making it look easy and natural

Yes, the entire point of his act is that it's monotonous and repetitive.

[imitationleather]

I very much agree with this but I also wonder if it was just the joyous anarchy of youth.

I think it is this. The dynamic would just be weird now they're in their fifties.

I enjoy FoF and TMWRNJ a lot more than either's solo work, but I don't think the double act had the mileage in it to work forever.

[RenegadeScrew]

I discovered Lee well after the double act finished around 2006 when they were showing Stand Up Comedian on paramount.  So I am biased the other way.

For me, they've both done stuff solo that is better.  Herring's Christ On A Bike and Hitler Moustache, and all of Lee's stand up shows. 

41st best stand up is almost perfection imo. 

[ajsmith2]

Does anyone else think in terms of them being a Lennon/McCartney type proposition?

[rimbaud]

Yes, the entire point of his act is that it's monotonous and repetitive.

I was being a bit facetious and you're both right that it takes lots of skill to do so.  I think the popadom bit in the last series before he was cancelled really did take the piss though. 

I saw him live with friends and it was very good until he started on the pear cider made of pears routine.  Not only was it not particularly amusing, but after 20 minutes of it, he fucked up the punchline at the end, and looked rightfully ashamed.

[colacentral]

I was being a bit facetious and you're both right that it takes lots of skill to do so.  I think the popadom bit in the last series before he was cancelled really did take the piss though. 

I think the problem with the popadom bit, at least my problem with it, is that it and other, similar bits, are part of a 30 minute episode, part of which is taken up by interviews and / or sketches. Those bits are too long for an episode but too short to be effective as a piece of stand-up. For that reason I'm glad Comedy Vehicle is over because for me it impacted negatively on his work. I'd rather him concentrate on shows that are exactly as long as he wants them to be, paced how he wants to pace them.

[Brundle-Fly]

That sounds like the worst thing ever. Just imagine all the smug knowing backslapping between these self-professed 'outsider artists'. Insufferable!

If it were even remotely true.

[rimbaud]

I think the problem with the popadom bit, at least my problem with it, is that it and other, similar bits, are part of a 30 minute episode, part of which is taken up by interviews and / or sketches. Those bits are too long for an episode but too short to be effective as a piece of stand-up. For that reason I'm glad Comedy Vehicle is over because for me it impacted negatively on his work. I'd rather him concentrate on shows that are exactly as long as he wants them to be, paced how he wants to pace them.

A very fair comment.

[RenegadeScrew]

I think the problem with the popadom bit, at least my problem with it, is that it and other, similar bits, are part of a 30 minute episode, part of which is taken up by interviews and / or sketches. Those bits are too long for an episode but too short to be effective as a piece of stand-up. For that reason I'm glad Comedy Vehicle is over because for me it impacted negatively on his work. I'd rather him concentrate on shows that are exactly as long as he wants them to be, paced how he wants to pace them.

Personally I think the larger problem is that it wasn't that great.  The Corbyn cat bit pushed it but still worked for me.  Splitting stuff into chunks worked surprisingly well for most of his material.  You obviously can't have 50 minute callbacks to quillows but in general it worked out alright.

I am not imaginative enough to imagine if the Poppadom bit could've been good in a 2hr show.  I still think stuff like the Tom O'Connor bit "he come out Stew" has a lot more to it than simple repetition, and it would work as a standalone bit on an episode of comedy vehicle.

It certainly negatively impacted his work though.  Content Provider is his first proper show in ages.  Instead of maybe one or two complete shows, we got a mix of some old stuff and some new stuff.  If each series of CV had about 2 hours of stand up, then Lee has probably put about 4 hours of new material into the show in total.

Worth it for "George Osborne's eye with a ladybird in it?" alone.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=304Kj8t8hUs

[Satchmo Distel]

I was being a bit facetious and you're both right that it takes lots of skill to do so.  I think the popadom bit in the last series before he was cancelled really did take the piss though. 

I saw him live with friends and it was very good until he started on the pear cider made of pears routine.  Not only was it not particularly amusing, but after 20 minutes of it, he fucked up the punchline at the end, and looked rightfully ashamed.

Doesn't he sometimes fuck up the punchline on purpose?

[greenman]

Personally I think the larger problem is that it wasn't that great.  The Corbyn cat bit pushed it but still worked for me.  Splitting stuff into chunks worked surprisingly well for most of his material.  You obviously can't have 50 minute callbacks to quillows but in general it worked out alright.

In that episode of course its not really the pompadom section that's most extended but the "bits of food on rod" at about 15 mins long and I think one of the best examples of that kind of overplaying a joke whilst working with/against the audience.

In some ways I think the TV format allowed for that style to be taken further by spilting it up, across a single long show I don't think it would be easy to get away with that volume of material, plus of course the ability to cut to the interviews.

[dekko]

Mrs dekko is currently obsessed with Japanese comedy duo Sandwichman, who make me think of what Lee and Herring might be like if Fist of Fun had hit Series 14.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Fm8WUg2WU

[Twed]

They are uncannily like Lee and Herring, only Japanese.

[c]

pompadom

That's what they're called now.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

pompadom

I knew a lad in my shared student house, nearly thirty years ago, who called them that.

You're not Pete Cooper who was at college in Northampton and living in a student house in Abbots' Way in 1989, are you?

[Nobody Soup]

I think the problem with the popadom bit, at least my problem with it, is that it and other, similar bits, are part of a 30 minute episode, part of which is taken up by interviews and / or sketches. Those bits are too long for an episode but too short to be effective as a piece of stand-up. For that reason I'm glad Comedy Vehicle is over because for me it impacted negatively on his work. I'd rather him concentrate on shows that are exactly as long as he wants them to be, paced how he wants to pace them.

nah, it was just bad. was it not rumoured on here the audience had pissed him off that night to the point he was doing it out of contempt? the only reason to defend that routine is stewart lee has built up such a lot of justified confidence from his audience as someone who delivers hilarious, intelligent, thought provoking material that they blamed themselves for not being clever enough to "get it". he's pretty much a genius, I'm done with pretending otherwise, only really Kitson is on his level over the last 20 years in the UK (that I know of, I am not super up on every new comic) but that sucked. the "if you say you're english..." bit was marvelous, and that was one of his most repetitive ever. he can do it well.

double act wouldn't work cause two old men hanging about is just weird.

[Pranet]

Stewart Lee used to say that he liked the idea of them getting back together when they get really old.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

double act wouldn't work cause two old men hanging about is just weird.

Two oldsters sitting chatting on a park bench or public seat in town? 

[Pranet]

Got to say I wondered a bit about that. Aren't 50 year olds allowed friends?

[DrGreggles]

Stewart Lee used to say that he liked the idea of them getting back together when they get really old.

And doing the same material.

[Oops! Wrong Planet]

Hope the OP doesn't mind that I've just used the thread title as the last sentence in my dissertation, Social Values in Juvenal and Roman Satire.

[c]

Hope the OP doesn't mind that I've just used the thread title as the last sentence in my dissertation, Social Values in Juvenal and Roman Satire.

That's a coincidence, so did I