Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World Page #4

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I've been trying to do

observational comedy. Yeah.

That's kind of BBC One,

ITV One, sort of.

"Oh, look at that," kind of stuff.

(LAUGHTER)

I've been trying to do

observational comedy

of a specifically anti-Islamic bent.

Yeah. Anti-Islamic

observational comedy.

I've had some good reviews

for that. People going, "Brilliant!

"Like Islamophobic Michael Mclntyre!"

That was good.

"Superb! The John Bishop

of cultural relativism."

(LAUGHTER)

So, here we are now, Sheffield,

with some anti-Islamic

observational comedy.

Anti-Islamic observational comedy.

Observational comedy.

(LAUGHTER)

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

(LAUGHTER)

(LEE SIGHS)

(MIC POPS)

(LAUGHTER)

(LAUGHTER)

(LOUD LAUGHTER)

(SIGHS)

(LAUGHTER)

Have you seen these Muslims

they have now?

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

That's the end of that bit.

(LAUGHTER)

People up there are going,

"Oh, now it's picking up."

(LAUGHTER)

I've got three, erm,

anti-Islamic one-liners now that

I'm hoping to sell on

to Roy "Chubby" Brown. Here they are.

(IMITATING BROWN)

"Hey, you know, one in two kids born

in Britain today is called Mohammad.

"And that's just the girls.

I've not got the exact figures."

(LAUGHTER)

(IMITATING BROWN)

"Did you know one in two Islamic

hate preachers in Britain today

"has got a hook for his hand.

I've done no research."

(LAUGHTER)

(IN HIS OWN VOICE)

Do you know one in two people

claiming to be a spokesperson

for the entire

British-Muslim community

is, in fact, the unelected leader

of a non-democratic

special-interest fringe group

given ideas above its station

by a misguided

New Labour community

bridge-building initiative?

(LAUGHTER)

Some laughs. A lot of people going,

"What was that?

What was that supposed to be?"

(LAUGHTER)

I'll tell you what that was,

my come-in-error friends,

that was the best joke about Islam

in Britain anyone has ever done.

That's what that was.

It was even-handed. It was informed.

It's what you say you want, isn't it?

You go, "Do stuff about Islam!"

I just did.

"Not like that, Stew.

(LAUGHTER)

"Not where you have to know anything.

(LAUGHTER)

"When we said do stuff about Islam,

we meant make fun of their hats."

(LAUGHTER)

What can I do? I got nothing.

You know, I drive around.

I look after kids.

I got nothing.

But fair enough, for not laughing

at that. It's an edgy subject.

It makes people uncomfortable.

You're thinking,

"Where is this going?"

If you got stuff that

makes people uncomfortable

what they say on the comedy course

is now, they say,

take the curse off it.

Take the edge off it.

Personalise it, yeah?

Make it personal to you.

So I was walking around

with my son, who's real.

(LAUGHTER)

I walking around where I live

with my son

and there was a Muslim lady

coming on the road towards us.

It's a very cosmopolitan area,

where I live in London,

very cosmopolitan area.

(MILD LAUGHTER)

No, it is. My, er...

(LAUGHTER)

My dentist...

it's a very cosmopolitan area.

My dentist is actually a lesbian.

(LAUGHTER)

At least, I assume

she's a lesbian because, er,

she had me out

under general anaesthetic

and when I came around,

I hadn't been sexually assaulted.

(LAUGHTER)

There was some rectal bleeding.

(LAUGHTER)

You expect that at my age, obviously.

(LAUGHTER)

Different pockets of laughs, weren't

there, throughout that joke.

(LAUGHTER)

But never a point where

the whole theatre laughed as one.

Why not? Not a very good joke,

that's why.

(LAUGHTER)

Let's go back over it

and see what was wrong with it.

(LAUGHTER)

Yeah, now it wasn't clear, was it?

What the point of it is.

(LAUGHTER)

What was I saying?

Was I saying, "Hey, guess what?

"I'm so attractive

my dentist must be a lesbian,

otherwise she would have sexually

assaulted me when I was unconscious"?

Was that the joke?

Some people thought so.

Or was the joke that I was implying

that all dentists are

indiscriminate sexual predators.

(LAUGHTER)

It wasn't clear, not everyone laughed.

So what I did,

I don't know if you noticed,

I put an extra bit

on the end, didn't I,

about rectal bleeding.

(LAUGHTER)

And for a lot of you that

just tipped the joke over, didn't it?

To be funny enough to laugh at.

And that's an old standup trick,

we all do that.

If you watch a lot of standup,

you see we all do it.

Got a joke, not funny enough,

put an extra bit on the end

about anal rape or rectal bleeding

(LAUGHTER)

And that will just nudge it

into being funny.

Old standup trick, extra bit on the

end, anal rape, rectal bleeding.

We have a name for that technique

in the trade, we call it Boyle's Law.

(LAUGHTER)

Anyway, I was walking along

where I live with my son.

He's 4 years old. There's

a Muslim lady coming towards us.

Full burka, just her eyes showing

and my son, he's 4.

He meant nothing by this.

He looked at her and then he said

to me, "Is that a ghost?" Right?

I thought, "What are you gonna

say? What am I gonna say?"

So I said to him,

"No, it isn't a ghost.

"It's a lady. She's religious

and she believes in God

"and she believes that God

wants her to cover her face."

I thought,

"That's all right, say that."

And then my son said, "Why?"

(LAUGHTER)

It was at that point that I realised

I'd reached the limit

of my knowledge of Islam.

(LAUGHTER)

Don't really know any more

about it than that,

and the killings and stuff,

and neither do you, do you?

You don't know anything

about it either.

Even those of you of Islamic

background are normally quite hazy

(LAUGHTER)

About the details when pressed.

And that's why it's so difficult

to do jokes

with any real depth on the subject.

Because there isn't really enough of a

shared collective pool of knowledge

between performer and audience

to be able to move off the most

obvious areas really.

So stop sending me

your stupid f***ing e-mails.

(LAUGHTER)

"Why?" That's always the terrible

moment in parenting, isn't it,

if you've got kids. "Why?"

Now, normally, I just say,

"Because I say so,"

and I leave it at that.

But that wouldn't work in

this situation, if you think about it.

(LAUGHTER)

"God wants her to cover her face."

"Why, Dad?"

(LAUGHTER)

"Because I say so."

That's handing a child a lifetime

of psychological illness, isn't it?

Forty years later, he's in therapy.

(IN GERMAN ACCENT)

"When did you first decide that your

father had power over the gods?"

(LAUGHTER)

Always Spanish, aren't they,

those blokes.

(LAUGHTER)

Yeah, you like that! The switcheroo!

(LAUGHTER)

He sounded German,

it turned out he was Spanish.

(LAUGHTER)

Not impossible, is it?

Could have been born in Spain, trained

in Germany, come over here to work.

(LAUGHTER)

Maybe it's not such

a funny situation after all.

You have to watch out,

some of the jokes are traps.

(LAUGHTER)

They are not meant to be laughed at.

You walked into it.

(LAUGHTER)

Why?

I mean, 10 years ago

I wouldn't have faffed around

trying to say the right thing.

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