Stewart, if you're reading this I want you to know that as a result of watching this clip I went out and BOUGHT the DVD for 20 quid. It seemed only fair.
Lee is a genius, he deserves the kudos he receives. We are lucky, comedy has never been so advanced - he should wear tin foil like a home made spaceman.
@hgilbert most today don't have the patience for any thought process requiring more than 3 seconds of concentration, and you actually have to listen, and give him a chance to let it develop. genius stuff, brilliantly played.
My turn! He's just doing social commentary & observational comedy but about absurd, fake, exaggerated & often surreal subjects. The clever bit is that the ESSENCE of his observations & commentary are still valid despite this. The corporate consumer culture *really is* pillaging everything that's sacred & authentic. This validity of the central message is what allows him to be silly without being idiotic, and it also juxtaposes well with moments of (also deliberately absurd) pathos & truth. :)
You absolutely right. Although, I don't see hoe someone can fail to 'get it'; it's not very hard to understand. Great comedian, by the way. Can't wait to see him at the fringe.
I think this is the finest, cleverest, and most hilarious - yes, hilarious - bit of stand up I've ever seen. The joke with Stew is that he sets himself up as the middle class liberal lefty type but then pricks his own pomposity by telling us how the world continually lets him down. You can't help but love him, especially with the more extreme digs at himself, like his being an orphan. The best stand up working today, and for the past 20 years.
The link to this video on Stewart Lee's website describes this as... *"an illegally uploaded youtube clip of me talking about illegal online sharing of my DVDs."* LMAO!
being ranked the 41st best standup is a disgrace! as far as im concerned he is the finest standup in the world ever. Saw him at Edinburgh this year and it was hilarious, before the show he was in the street handing out fliers and then at the end he walked to the back to sign anything you put in front and him and to thank everyone for coming. the least pretentious artist I have ever seen. Johnny vegas and Kayvan Novak from FoneJacker were in the audience as well pissing themselves.
Fast becomming my new favorite stand-up - was a fan years ago, back in the Lee & Perring days, but been catching up on youtube... maybe will see what DVD's Amazon has for £2.49.
If you're referring to Vegetable Stew, that was material he was putting out for the Second Series of Comedy Vehicle, Carpet Remnant World will be released this November.
I have here a list of the true values of Stewart Lee: 1. Make people laugh 2. Make people laugh 3. Perpetuate elitism 4. Make people laugh 5. Perpetuate elitism again; this time by ironically discouraging it. The sheer dishonest naked hypocrisy of even imagining for a second that such things exist as the values of Stewart Lee.
the elitism is that of the rich and powerful exploiters, the racists, the people who believe one ethnic group or nationality is superior to another, the bankers, the New World Order, the hypocritical billionaire media tycoons pretending they're somehow on the side of the poor and working class, the greedy minority with their age-old reliance on divide and rule ..
@tyrannosaurusdead kind of... If you mean the modern commercial pear ciders they are at best made from pear concentrate - and just like cheap carton orange juice they can still claim to be 100% fruit. Some are even just pear-flavoured ciders. Proper perries are made, like proper cider, from freshly pressed fruit that is allowed to ferment and age.
Yes it is. He even practically says it, when he talks about holding on to a little way of thinking, when the workingclass people moved from the countryside to the city. The phrase "give it to me straight..." that meant something to the those people, is taken away from them for the purpose of selling cider.
No, seriously. His comedy really is this engineered. Every single word is chosen very carefully. His book, 'How I Escaped My Certain Fate' goes into it.
I don't think it's about 'getting it' but I think you are underestimating the amount of work that he puts into his routines. I know it's a fine line between that and appearing elitist, but that's why Stewart Lee is so great; with most comedy there is maybe two or three layers and a joke can only really be interpreted one or perhaps two ways, but with him there are so many layers that people can look at it in so many ways, and that's the whole point, I think.
@92RedRevolver He's definitely going up in the world, trouble is he probably doesn't like that as he is now probably considered more mainstream by some, just because he is more popular.
The ad is real, no-one outside the ad ever uses the phrase. The point is he's complaining about marketing co-opting, and destroying culture for it's own image/ends, but he's doing it ironically by using a phrase which was actually original, but is shit, implying that marketing either ruins things by co-opting them, or creates absolute shit.
Any Stew fans here reckon the camera thing was staged? The material was a bit too well developed to have been delivered purely by chance, and I hadn't heard him use it in previous shows. A bit like the 'walkout' during the toaster song on comedy vehicle perhaps?
@MrHennessy30 Bearing in mind he's done probably thousands of gigs, and had all the time in the world to think of some cutting way of taking the piss out of someone who's taking pictures, what he said wasn't specific to that scenario, just anybody with a camera.
Who did mock breakdowns first? Johnny Vegas has been doing this for years, but I think I first saw Lee do one in a DVD he did in Wales. I'm not sure if comedians did it before Vegas and Lee though, any suggestions?
@sixfootpigeon You are absolutely correct. Pear cider is a marketing phrase made up for a perry and I'm glad that someone else feels the same because it has annoyed me for a long time. Anyone that has had the dubious pleasure of shopping with me will testify to my "its not a pear cider its a perry" rant.
@danbo1984 I was watching stu on utube, wife came in n said "oh, I've some bad news wasn't sure whether to tell u" She didn't look happy n for a horrible mo I thought she wuz gonna say he'd died, but all it was was his next gig near us was sold out (even tho its months away) and she was gonna surprise me with tickets, bless! So pity for us but great for Stu. Funniest stand-up no question, fer me anyway (And he had Alan Moore on his TV show)
It's about a way of life and a way of thinking, amongst the exploited working classes, being overruled by commercial propaganda in the name of profits for the wealthy.
To me, I think that Stewart Lee wants that. This is art. An aesthetic experience. Lee thrives on his elitist following. He is the T.S. Eliot of comedy. Fragments of our lives, shorn against the ruins of an unreality, permeated by reality. Lee wants you to take from it, what you will. Suggesting that there is a limit to interpretation and condensing it into a reductive cliché, is totally at odds with the values of Stewart Lee Ltd. You gaylord.
Thanks, pietzsche! Nice! That makes it even funnier. I love the layers like where he is play acting that he would use this phrase in real life even though it is complete garbage. Wow. What's up with Welshs over there? That's the most awful catchphrase in recent memory...
All Stewart Lee's shows are filled with subtle ironies. The part in this where he complains that people will download the show illegally instead of buying it for example. Stew has never done stand-up for the money. He prefers to do small, out of the way venues. He does it because he likes it. He has earned enough from the other stuff like Jerry Springer the opera to never worry about selling a DVD again.
Maybe it does betray some hidden elitism, but I think his interpretation is as valid as any. He is merely proposing a framework within which to view the joke. It is up to us to accept, reject, integrate or ignore it. I think if there is perhaps any measurement that captures that which is great about art, it may be the number of interpretations that it can offer suffient support to. I think that the audience creates the comedy in their own head with varying degrees of help from the artist.
as much as I hate to break it down so much there seems to be some disagreement so I will give my 2 cents He is exaggerating and deliberately making too much of the illegal downloading thing, he doesnt really care that much about it and is parodying other people He is also exaggerating about the pear cider thing but that is an honest opinion, he just went out of his way to push the point for maximum effect I hope I am right about the first one because I am currently uploading the full show
Yes. This is definitely it. How do I make this the top comment? That hgilbert fellow's intentions are fine but I would question his analysis. This, on the other hand, is completely sound.
I think it's somewhere between the two. The galway girl section at the end genuinely was something that he felt the magners adverts had taken from him, but obviously it's much more funny to do the routine about a genuinely awful advert, because the idea that that phrase would have been such a personal thing, passed down through generations, is absurd.
For many years cider was apples and Perry was pears, why was that hard for people like for them to start drinking perry they had to call it pear cider and people even say apple cider now. Seems weird.
Yeah, nice summary. I thought that the essence of the joke wasn't "between the lines", it was in his "advertising creative on hundreds of millions of pounds a year" line, and then he extended it into other themes.
![Stewart Lee - [1/2] Give It To Me Straight, Like Pear Cider That's Made From 100% Pears](/img/n.gif)
Stewart Lee = Comedy Genius
Stewart, if you're reading this I want you to know that as a result of watching this clip I went out and BOUGHT the DVD for 20 quid. It seemed only fair.
same here
This is probably my favourite climax to any comedy DVD yet, but it really does suffer for being watched in isolation. You need the full setup.
True, in fact all SL's output is best taken in full context.
Some comedians grow dimmer with age but this guy just burns brighter every year.
I was craning my neck to watch this from the Gods... My face hurt from laughing for a good hour.
07:50, possibly the best improv ever recorded.
Lee is a genius, he deserves the kudos he receives. We are lucky, comedy has never been so advanced - he should wear tin foil like a home made spaceman.
Ha! Stewart Lee's website links to this clip via the page 'Did you illegally download my DVDs?
I cannot help but imagine Stewart Lee as Bob Mortimer's evil twin...
I also love the fact that the climax of one 10 minute long joke is 'one massive pear'.
:)
What a fucking genius. Impeccable timing!
Life-affirming.
@hgilbert most today don't have the patience for any thought process requiring more than 3 seconds of concentration, and you actually have to listen, and give him a chance to let it develop. genius stuff, brilliantly played.
Twelve people own umbrellas.
supper got to love him theres no one like him
I'll never get bored of the comment sections on Stewart Lee videos. N'aww!
Finally, a worthwhile comment. Please accept this thumbs up.
Milder comedian has to one of the greatest stand up sets of all time.
I feel guilty watching this for free now !!
sublime.
I bet that guy never took his umbrella to theatre again
@7:45 ... comedy brilliance... man is a monster!!! should be in parliament!!!!
joy throughout the whole room. pause it and look at their faces
Very true. If you find him funny, then you get him pretty much.
Well, let's be honest, it's probably the most intellectually challenging and safe comments section we may ever come across.
My turn!
He's just doing social commentary & observational comedy but about absurd, fake, exaggerated & often surreal subjects. The clever bit is that the ESSENCE of his observations & commentary are still valid despite this.
The corporate consumer culture *really is* pillaging everything that's sacred & authentic.
This validity of the central message is what allows him to be silly without being idiotic, and it also juxtaposes well with moments of (also deliberately absurd) pathos & truth.
:)
You absolutely right. Although, I don't see hoe someone can fail to 'get it'; it's not very hard to understand. Great comedian, by the way. Can't wait to see him at the fringe.
Outstanding!
Thanks for explaining the beautful thing about art
This is amazing
Brilliant!
I think this is the finest, cleverest, and most hilarious - yes, hilarious - bit of stand up I've ever seen. The joke with Stew is that he sets himself up as the middle class liberal lefty type but then pricks his own pomposity by telling us how the world continually lets him down. You can't help but love him, especially with the more extreme digs at himself, like his being an orphan. The best stand up working today, and for the past 20 years.
SMThomasson u still like him like that or u changed ur mind
This is outstanding.
The link to this video on Stewart Lee's website describes this as... *"an illegally uploaded youtube clip of me talking about illegal online sharing of my DVDs."* LMAO!
being ranked the 41st best standup is a disgrace! as far as im concerned he is the finest standup in the world ever. Saw him at Edinburgh this year and it was hilarious, before the show he was in the street handing out fliers and then at the end he walked to the back to sign anything you put in front and him and to thank everyone for coming. the least pretentious artist I have ever seen. Johnny vegas and Kayvan Novak from FoneJacker were in the audience as well pissing themselves.
Fast becomming my new favorite stand-up - was a fan years ago, back in the Lee & Perring days, but been catching up on youtube... maybe will see what DVD's Amazon has for £2.49.
If you're referring to Vegetable Stew, that was material he was putting out for the Second Series of Comedy Vehicle, Carpet Remnant World will be released this November.
One massive pear Hahaha
+Animal Lemonade you watched til the end congratulations!
I have here a list of the true values of Stewart Lee:
1. Make people laugh
2. Make people laugh
3. Perpetuate elitism
4. Make people laugh
5. Perpetuate elitism again; this time by ironically discouraging it.
The sheer dishonest naked hypocrisy of even imagining for a second that such things exist as the values of Stewart Lee.
He seems ok
the elitism is that of the rich and powerful exploiters, the racists, the people who believe one ethnic group or nationality is superior to another, the bankers, the New World Order, the hypocritical billionaire media tycoons pretending they're somehow on the side of the poor and working class, the greedy minority with their age-old reliance on divide and rule ..
This is his last gig without glasses.
@tyrannosaurusdead kind of... If you mean the modern commercial pear ciders they are at best made from pear concentrate - and just like cheap carton orange juice they can still claim to be 100% fruit. Some are even just pear-flavoured ciders. Proper perries are made, like proper cider, from freshly pressed fruit that is allowed to ferment and age.
Love it
Some of the enjoyment of this sketch is stripped out by people here over intellectualising something that is, in essence, really fucking funny.
Yes it is. He even practically says it, when he talks about holding on to a little way of thinking, when the workingclass people moved from the countryside to the city. The phrase "give it to me straight..." that meant something to the those people, is taken away from them for the purpose of selling cider.
No, seriously. His comedy really is this engineered. Every single word is chosen very carefully. His book, 'How I Escaped My Certain Fate' goes into it.
I don't think it's about 'getting it' but I think you are underestimating the amount of work that he puts into his routines. I know it's a fine line between that and appearing elitist, but that's why Stewart Lee is so great; with most comedy there is maybe two or three layers and a joke can only really be interpreted one or perhaps two ways, but with him there are so many layers that people can look at it in so many ways, and that's the whole point, I think.
@92RedRevolver He's definitely going up in the world, trouble is he probably doesn't like that as he is now probably considered more mainstream by some, just because he is more popular.
Going to see him next month, can't fucking wait.
The ad is real, no-one outside the ad ever uses the phrase. The point is he's complaining about marketing co-opting, and destroying culture for it's own image/ends, but he's doing it ironically by using a phrase which was actually original, but is shit, implying that marketing either ruins things by co-opting them, or creates absolute shit.
Any Stew fans here reckon the camera thing was staged? The material was a bit too well developed to have been delivered purely by chance, and I hadn't heard him use it in previous shows. A bit like the 'walkout' during the toaster song on comedy vehicle perhaps?
We're all watching this on the internet for free..... >.>
'Like captured partisans digging their own mass grave'......fucking comedy genius!
"One massive pear!" LOL..!!
thanks
nah it was nearly done after about 3 hours of uploading and then it stopped for some reason, I'll try it again now
@MrHennessy30 Bearing in mind he's done probably thousands of gigs, and had all the time in the world to think of some cutting way of taking the piss out of someone who's taking pictures, what he said wasn't specific to that scenario, just anybody with a camera.
Morrissey's really let himself go.
'One massive pear?'
Who did mock breakdowns first? Johnny Vegas has been doing this for years, but I think I first saw Lee do one in a DVD he did in Wales. I'm not sure if comedians did it before Vegas and Lee though, any suggestions?
@sixfootpigeon You are absolutely correct. Pear cider is a marketing phrase made up for a perry and I'm glad that someone else feels the same because it has annoyed me for a long time. Anyone that has had the dubious pleasure of shopping with me will testify to my "its not a pear cider its a perry" rant.
Amazing routine
@danbo1984 I was watching stu on utube, wife came in n said "oh, I've some bad news wasn't sure whether to tell u" She didn't look happy n for a horrible mo I thought she wuz gonna say he'd died, but all it was was his next gig near us was sold out (even tho its months away) and she was gonna surprise me with tickets, bless! So pity for us but great for Stu. Funniest stand-up no question, fer me anyway (And he had Alan Moore on his TV show)
@dashmore85 they did an updated one and he was like 9th or something.
which DVD is this on? I want to buy it like it's Michael McIntyre or something
It's about a way of life and a way of thinking, amongst the exploited working classes, being overruled by commercial propaganda in the name of profits for the wealthy.
To me, I think that Stewart Lee wants that. This is art. An aesthetic experience. Lee thrives on his elitist following. He is the T.S. Eliot of comedy. Fragments of our lives, shorn against the ruins of an unreality, permeated by reality. Lee wants you to take from it, what you will. Suggesting that there is a limit to interpretation and condensing it into a reductive cliché, is totally at odds with the values of Stewart Lee Ltd. You gaylord.
Thanks, pietzsche! Nice! That makes it even funnier. I love the layers like where he is play acting that he would use this phrase in real life even though it is complete garbage. Wow. What's up with Welshs over there? That's the most awful catchphrase in recent memory...
All Stewart Lee's shows are filled with subtle ironies. The part in this where he complains that people will download the show illegally instead of buying it for example. Stew has never done stand-up for the money. He prefers to do small, out of the way venues. He does it because he likes it. He has earned enough from the other stuff like Jerry Springer the opera to never worry about selling a DVD again.
I love that he has this linked to his website about ripping his DVD. Oh the irony XD
Maybe it does betray some hidden elitism, but I think his interpretation is as valid as any. He is merely proposing a framework within which to view the joke. It is up to us to accept, reject, integrate or ignore it.
I think if there is perhaps any measurement that captures that which is great about art, it may be the number of interpretations that it can offer suffient support to. I think that the audience creates the comedy in their own head with varying degrees of help from the artist.
which I got by illegaly downloading it off a torrent site. not even joking. used to have pink hair too many years ago
Saw this live and he really grilled a guy for scooting to the loo. ...can you imagine my disappointment...
yeh stew I tried to buy your dvds but they're not available in America
which DVD is this off of?
Don't worry about it. Just download it and save the money.
If you would prefer a milder comedian please ask for one but 41st best comedian and 90s comedian are much better ⚡
as much as I hate to break it down so much there seems to be some disagreement so I will give my 2 cents
He is exaggerating and deliberately making too much of the illegal downloading thing, he doesnt really care that much about it and is parodying other people
He is also exaggerating about the pear cider thing but that is an honest opinion, he just went out of his way to push the point for maximum effect
I hope I am right about the first one because I am currently uploading the full show
Hahahahaha! 😂😂😂
Actually, in the advert he says 'pears.'
whoa a new DVD? do you have a source for this? i saw CRW live, it was excellent
Yes. This is definitely it. How do I make this the top comment? That hgilbert fellow's intentions are fine but I would question his analysis. This, on the other hand, is completely sound.
I think it's somewhere between the two. The galway girl section at the end genuinely was something that he felt the magners adverts had taken from him, but obviously it's much more funny to do the routine about a genuinely awful advert, because the idea that that phrase would have been such a personal thing, passed down through generations, is absurd.
funny.
i liekd tghe bit wer hi shuted @ the ladee lol
in ONE afternoon
For many years cider was apples and Perry was pears, why was that hard for people like for them to start drinking perry they had to call it pear cider and people even say apple cider now. Seems weird.
@lewistrundell Fair enough, but why look at and comment on one of his youtube vids then? ::S
That'd be cool but I'll probably end up buy a copy at some point. Maybe when I'm a bit lees skint. :)
ONE MASSIVE PEAR?!! LOL
5:19 haha that poor woman
What DVD is this from? Is there a torrent?
It's more of a part about cultural robbery. The same thing has happened to the terms nerd and geek.
666 likes!
@JackCalico 41st best yeh :D but higher than that imo
Yeah, nice summary. I thought that the essence of the joke wasn't "between the lines", it was in his "advertising creative on hundreds of millions of pounds a year" line, and then he extended it into other themes.
Not actually the same advert, but yeh I agree
"100% pear" - watch?v=2oNtNEsEvOw
Galway Girl - watch?v=ERsSxtjKkHw&feature=related
aaah I forgot there was another bit to the advert- so many layers eh?
Did Welshs actually use the phrase or is that made up? I'm not British so I'm just trying to figure out the joke.
Is it still up? :)
@KevinFroleiksComedy "If you prefer a Milder Comedian, please ask for one", his most recent
Just read his book (How I Escaped My Certain Fate) and it's explained there. Fucking hell.
One massive pair ?
Where is she ?