Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World Page #10

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1, 2, 3, out."

"What I did," he said, "was I had

way more surgical procedures done

"than I knew would be

optimally funny."

(LAUGHTER)

"But knowing your work,"

he said, "I've seen you

and I know how you work,"

"I knew that you would feel obliged

to list them all."

(LAUGHTER)

"And that would mean

that while there were pockets

"of hilarity in the room,

"on the whole, a list that long

"would cause the trust and energy

in the room to dissipate."

(LAUGHTER)

So I've got nothing.

(LAUGHTER)

I drive around and look after kids.

I've got nothing.

I thought I'd copy some

of the award-winning standup shows.

The shows that are winning awards now.

Copy them, yeah? The shows

that are winning awards now.

The sad standup shows.

That's the new thing,

sad standup shows.

"Oh, my dad's dead."

"Oh, I've had chemotherapy."

"Oh, I've got divorced."

"Oh, I'm adopted."

You seen these sort of shows?

They won't be in a place like this.

They'll be in little art centres

and whatever.

Plus by the time

a comedian's playing here,

er, creatively spent, normally.

(LAUGHTER)

Little, yeah, sad comedy shows

and then at the end

a bit of sad music comes in.

Clair de la Lune

or something like that.

And the comedian goes,

"but despite everything,

I learned that life's like..."

You know. You've seen these?

Sad comedy shows?

No? You don't know

what I'm talking about?

You're not a comedy crowd,

are you really?

(LAUGHTER)

Russell Kane's done one.

You've heard of him.

He's on the telly a lot.

No? He's done one about his dad dying?

He's done a sad, award winning

standup show about his dad dying.

His dad dies

and then he goes a bit mad

and then he becomes famous,

and then he ends up getting off

with loads of glamour models.

It's about how awful that was for him.

(LAUGHTER)

I've not seen it.

Actually my wife saw it,

Russell Kane's show about his dad

dying, and she said it was great.

She said what was brilliant about it

was you weren't expecting it

because it was a comedy

but at the end, she said,

it was actually very moving

and she was crying.

And I said to her, "You were crying

at the end of a standup show?"

She said, "Yeah."

I said,

"Well, it's not any good then, is it?"

(LAUGHTER)

You know, I'm from the '80s

admittedly, right? I'm old-school,

but I think if you go

and see a comedian

and at the end you're crying,

right?

That is someone

who cannot do their job.

(LAUGHTER)

But like I said, I haven't seen

Russell Kane's show

about his dad dying.

I'm sure it's very good.

What I am impressed by

about it, though, is the fact

that he managed to not resolve

his grief for long enough

to tour it commercially.

(LAUGHTER)

"Oh, my dad's dead."

Oh, shut up.

Shut up and give

your award back, idiot.

(LAUGHTER)

All our dads are dead, aren't they?

All our dads die. We all die.

What are we?

We're just meat

being shoveled into a grave.

(LAUGHTER)

Do you wanna hear that on a night out?

(LAUGHTER)

Sad comedy shows. It makes me sick.

Sad. What a... Sad. Sad...

What an insult to ordinary people

in a recession.

(LAUGHTER)

"Yeah, let's go out."

"Oh, I've just lost my job.

I'm so depressed.

"I'll go and see the comedian

to cheer me up.

"Count out all the money

for the emergency.

(LAUGHTER)

"Where is it on at?

Oh, the O2, that's 47 pounds.

(LAUGHTER)

"And parking, that's 30 pounds.

"And we'll need a baseball hat

with the comedian's face on it.

(LAUGHTER)

"We've just got enough. Oh, great.

Ha, ha, ha, I'm crying now."

(LAUGHTER)

Sad comedy. "I've only got one arm."

"Oh, f*** off back to New Zealand."

(LAUGHTER)

You're not even real.

People doing...

I could do a sad comedy show. Loads

of awful things have happened to me.

Adopted, divorced parents,

65,000 born-again Christians

tried to send me to prison.

You don't see me

doing standup shows about that.

(LAUGHTER)

Because I've got some self,

I've got some dignity

and self-respect.

People doing shows about themselves.

How self-indulgent is that?

(LAUGHTER)

I couldn't do a show about myself

if I wanted to. I don't know who I am.

Who am I? I don't know.

We're defined by what we do.

I don't do anything.

I drive around and look after kids.

(LAUGHTER)

You couldn't do a standup show

about that.

(LAUGHTER)

People wouldn't stand for it.

(LAUGHTER)

I don't know who... I don't know...

Lee Mack knows who he is,

doesn't he? Lee Mack.

Four and half million people watching,

they come up to him on the street.

"Are you Lee Mack?"

"Yeah, I am."

People come up to me and they go,

"Are you Terry Christian?"

(LAUGHTER)

"The bloke from UB40."

(LAUGHTER)

"What's Tanita Tikaram

doing in the gents?"

(LAUGHTER)

"I thought Kim Jong-II was dead."

(LAUGHTER)

Impossible. I...

All that's happened to me

since I went on telly

is half a million more people

now insist to my face

that I'm someone else.

(LAUGHTER)

Right here this afternoon

in the square in Sheffield

getting all these carpets in.

And...

(MILD LAUGHTER)

They're not here normally, those.

(LAUGHTER)

We have to get... We brought them.

We have to get them in.

They don't get themselves in, do they?

I'm not the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

(LAUGHTER)

Anyway, a bloke came up to me

and he went, "it's you, isn't it?"

I went, "Yeah!"

He goes, "What are you doing here?"

I said, "I'm doing a standup show

"in the theatre

here in Sheffield tonight."

He said, "Really?

"Shouldn't you be

at the Hague war crimes tribunal?"

(LAUGHTER)

He thought I was General Ratko Mladic.

The genocidal Serbian warlord.

(LAUGHTER)

He's 67 years old.

(LAUGHTER)

It's an impossible situation

He's going, "it's you, isn't it?"

I was going, "Yeah."

The only dignified way out of it

is to allow him to continue to think

I am General Ratko Mladic.

(LAUGHTER)

He said, "Shouldn't you be

at the Hague war crimes tribunal?"

I went, "Oh, no, you know..."

(LAUGHTER)

The woman out there,

she did the form in wrong.

She wrote over the line.

She went, "Oh, God, it'll take ages

to do all this again.

"You can go off, you know."

(LAUGHTER)

He goes, "So you've come here?"

I said, "Yeah." "To Sheffield?

"To do standup comedy?"

(LAUGHTER)

"Yeah, you know.

I've had an interesting life.

(LAUGHTER)

"There's a sad bit at the end.

(LAUGHTER)

"When I'm caught.

"I play Clair de la Lune,

I talk about that.

"People are in floods,

I've won a Chortle Award."

(LAUGHTER)

He said, "No of fence, mate.

"But I think what you've done

out there is awful, obscene.

"At worst,

you should be in prison for life

"and at best you should be executed."

I said to him, "I agree with you,

to be honest, you know.

"But what do you actually

want me to do

"because they in the Hague,

they've said go off.

"So, you know, what?

What do you want me to do about that?"

And he went, "Oh, all right, mate."

Then he went off.

(LAUGHTER)

Going to the dressing room here,

laptop, wi-fi, Internet.

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