what's the best Stewart Lee set

[madhair60]

of the Available Sets on DVD home Video

- Stand Up Comedian   
- 90s Comedian
- 41st Best Stand Up Ever   
- If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One
- Carpet Remnant World

[Jerzy Bondov]

Milder Comedian is my favourite because of when he scrapes the microphone on the big card.

[magval]

Milder Comedian is probably my favourite, but 90s Comedian seems to be regarded as his best show generally. There isn't a bad one honestly, and this applies to his TV show as well, but Carpet Remnant seems the least like it has a satisfying through-line (which is, frustratingly, the point of it). I also don't like the outfit he wears in it.

[momatt]

The best one is when he does that impression of Richard Hammond drinking lovely milk.
I do that impression all the time and people think I'm stoopid.

So, thanks Stu.

[magval]

That's three votes for Milder Comedian, then. Get that one!

[rasta-spouse]

I think Carpet Remnant World is the culmination of his craft.

[c]

I think Carpet Remnant World is the culmination of his craft.

I agree with this. For me, CRW is his most brilliant creative achievement. In his arc from just another stand-up to someone who has actually done something new and amazing with the form, CRW is his peak. It's a masterpiece, structurally, and obviously extremely funny. I know the latest show isn't in the list, but I felt that it was a creative decline. He wasn't taking his arc to new heights, he was just doing something a bit like what he'd done before. 

[madhair60]

I know the latest show isn't in the list

It's not on DVD, I dunno if it's coming.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

That one where he divides the room and calls Russell Howard a cunt. Then his trousers fall down.

[rasta-spouse]

I know the latest show isn't in the list, but I felt that it was a creative decline. He wasn't taking his arc to new heights, he was just doing something a bit like what he'd done before.

Yeah, for me Content Provider was the sound of a CD skipping. The show just didn't move and it seemed like he had little to say, hence baiting Howard once again. I think he was trying to make it his most turgid show deliberately, and if so he succeeded.

[DrGreggles]

All good, but I've got a lot of love for CRW after I saw it from early WiP shows to try-outs to the finished product.

[mojo filters]

I agree with this. For me, CRW is his most brilliant creative achievement. In his arc from just another stand-up to someone who has actually done something new and amazing with the form, CRW is his peak. It's a masterpiece, structurally, and obviously extremely funny. I know the latest show isn't in the list, but I felt that it was a creative decline. He wasn't taking his arc to new heights, he was just doing something a bit like what he'd done before.

I totally agree with this. I was disappointed to find Content Provider was the first of his shows that didn't noticeably improve on the previous ones. I suspect this is just because CRW was just *so* good!

I've seen every show up to CRW as him incrementally further refining and perfecting the artform. It has the most solid structure, but unlike Content Provider it's very subtle in many places and I liked the variation that affords.

What particularly impresses me with CRW are the improved and impressive callbacks to previous themes and jokes, from his previous works.

I think it has his best stand-alone segments too - especially the brilliant Bin Laden / New York City corpse roasting lamppost team, the Radko Mladic (sp?) bit, and the Thatcher-jungle-canyon-rope-bridges scandal.

[Captain Z]

I'd probably agree with CRW right now, but there are so many good bits in the others my opinion would change depending on which routine has floated into my mind. Stand Up Comedian is pretty solid and the Diana routine is one of my favourite things to revisit.

[lankyguy95]

^
Was about to say, I think the Diana routine is my favourite bit of his.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I think the Diana routine is my favourite bit of his.

One of mine too, along with the Top Gear set, Richard Littlejohn and prostitute's gravestone set, and the bit in Carpet Remnant world when he reads out internet comments insulting him.

[Z]

90s comedian is a pretty exceptional formula and his breakthrough show imo, 41st is more of the same but ultimately a funnier show.

Each one since then has felt like it's been deliberately trying to shake things up a bit, which has been pretty good on the whole but I find it hard to look past the amount I loved those two at the time.

[Ferris]

Vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ, 100% of the time. The payoff at the end ("personally the last 30 minutes has been very uncomfortable for me" and the idea that it's all been to test the limits of acceptable speech) is well executed.

As a teenager, I remember trying to explain why it was good to my (quite religious) girlfriend at the time. Went over very badly.

[Jerzy Bondov]

When he scrapes the card with his microphone in Milder Comedian, he has to do it in such a way that not only gets a laugh, but a bigger laugh than most of the jokes before it. Otherwise he can't berate the audience for laughing so much. Very risky and very funny.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

One of mine too, along with the Top Gear set, Richard Littlejohn and prostitute's gravestone set, and the bit in Carpet Remnant world when he reads out internet comments insulting him.

And the starving mother explaining to her dying child that Russell Howard won't do more charity bike rides for them.

[AliasTheCat]

You can't go much wrong with any of them, though personally I slightly veer towards Milder Comedian, with the Gaping Anus of Chris in a close second, though I completely understand why there are so many votes for Carpet Remnant World.

[madhair60]

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POLL

[Thursday]

Well I can't decide, so I'm not voting.

[up_the_hampipe]

90s Comedian has the 'vomiting in the gaping anus of Christ' routine, which is one of my favourites. Milder Comedian has the Top Gear rant, which is another one of my favourites. Either of those. I like his darker stuff, basically. But, more importantly, watch them all because they're all great works.

[Small Man Big Horse]

90s Comedian has the 'vomiting in the gaping anus of Christ' routine, which is one of my favourites. Milder Comedian has the Top Gear rant, which is another one of my favourites. Either of those. I like his darker stuff, basically. But, more importantly, watch them all because they're all great works.

That'd be my choice too, though 90's Comedian would just edge it as it was the first show of his I saw live.