Marc Evans hears how top comedian Stewart Lee pieced together his new show A Room With A Stew

Never mind catch-up TV, comedian Stewart Lee is giving his fans the chance to be ahead of the game.

The writer and performer is bringing his stand-up show A Room With A Stew to Oxford, ahead of the new BBC2 series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle.

It’s the product of his latest spell on the road and, well, it’s all his own work.

“Most stand-up comedians on television use teams of writers now like in the 1970s, although they don’t admit to it, but that doesn’t really work for me because I don’t really do jokes,” says Lee.

“It’s more about mood and attitude so you can’t just buy in things wholesale from the anonymous humor content providers that all the others use.

“It is quite hard to generate that amount of material, even if you talk as slowly as I do, and repeat yourself all the time, and use pauses.

“I’ll have about three hours of material on the go, although I won’t perform all of it every night.”

And how is the writing going for series four?

“Well, it’s a challenge this time,” he says.

“The news is so volatile at the moment. Last year I rejigged and expanded an old bit about the banal tabloid newspaper assumption that comedians need to do more anti-Islamic stuff, and don’t because they are scared, and this bit was working quite well.

“ But since the Charlie Hebdo murders people’s reactions to it are all over the place.

“I have a funny half hour on the go about UKIP but any massive fall or rise in their fortunes would probably change how it works.

“Initially I was worried about doing it on tour because last year Paul Nuttalls of UKIP was leading a campaign to have comedians that did jokes about UKIP banned from theatres, but he seems to be saying the opposite of that since the Charlie Hebdo murders.

“He is now saying that making jokes is a democratic right in a free society so I am pleased about that.

“I mean, I’ve got kids and a mortgage and this is my job.

“I’ve got another half hour on poverty, which is always going to be topical sadly, and a bit on urine, which I think is timeless.”

Lee was last at the Playhouse in March last year but the country is quite a different place now – with the Tories’ surprise General Election victory followed by the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership.

“I can’t remember a time in my life when the country has seemed so fragmented in terms of politics, culture, wealth, attitudes, so it’s going to be fun seeing how badly and well different bits go in different places and then bringing what I’ve learned from that to bear on the finished routines.”

But more than 20 years in comedy is taking its toll on Lee physically, damaging his hearing and the rest of his body.

“In a way my physical collapse has been a huge advantage, it’s given the stage me some tragedy, some gravity. My knees are shattered and don’t work – I think I ruined them during the 200 dates I did of a show where I pretended to be Jeremy Clarkson kicking a tramp to death – and that has had an interesting effect on my physicality.

“If I jump off stage now or climb things there’s a genuine element of pain and danger involved.

“I’m like Eddie The Eagle or something.”

Where and when
Room With A Stew
Oxford Playhouse
Friday January 15
01865 305305 oxfordplayhouse.com