Stewart Lee, Leicester Square Theatre

Much A-Stew About Nothing – the new show from Britain’s most critically-acclaimed stand-up comedian Stewart Lee - opens at the Leicester Square Theatre this month ahead of its UK tour in January 2014. 

Known for cerebral, politically loaded performances executed with deft verbal swordsmanship, Lee is one of the most respected voices in British stand-up.

Lee’s star has waxed and waned in the course of his career, in - to use his own words - ‘7-year cycles of being popular’. This is a much anticipated show from a comic whose rise to the zenith of his influence and the vanguard of modern Alternative Comedy in the last 5 years has made untenable the angry, upwards-punching outsider persona that put him there.

Lee stresses, in the press preview we attended, that these are ‘work-in-progress’ shows: roadtests of material for the return of his BBC2 show Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle in 2014. Lovers of the lengthy, meticulously layered and gratification-delaying shows that have come to be his trademark should prepare for something different. The show is intentionally more bitty, in his own words a ‘mixed stew’ of unrelated ideas divided, unusually for Lee, by an interval at half-time.

The material is as self-aware as ever, and Lee is on form with stimulating routines which – though unlike the protracted takedowns of stadium-filling comedians for which he is well known – aim sharp barbs at the industry elite. (Think: Ricky Gervais’s Derek on Channel 4). A post-interval routine about Bulgarian immigration is a highlight, and a great example of the kind of skilfully mounted satire Lee does so well. An amusing digression about the concept of urinal cakes falls a little flat through its inaccessibility to the female contingent of Lee’s audience – but other than that, there’s very little about this show that’s not to like.

This is funny, clever, thinky comedy. If you like Stewart Lee, you’ll like this show, and if you’ve never seen him before, you’ll find it hard not to fall in love with him. 

Tickets: £17.50 / £15.50

Address and map: 6 Leicester Pl, London WC2H 7BX

Nearest tube: Leicester Square