Stewart Graham Lee was born on 5 April 1968 and is an English comedian, screenwriter, and television director.
24 Facts About Stewart Lee
2.
Stewart Lee has written music reviews for publications including The Sunday Times.
3.
Stewart Graham Lee was born on 5 April 1968 in Wellington, Shropshire.
4.
Stewart Lee was adopted as a child and grew up in Solihull, West Midlands.
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Stewart Lee attended the Solihull School on a part scholarship, and received what he calls a "waifs and strays bursary" because he was adopted.
6.
Stewart Lee participated in the school's mountain-walking club, which went on regular excursions to Snowdonia; the original members of the grindcore band Napalm Death took part.
7.
Stewart Lee has described how at the age of 16, he was "doing a lot of reading, going to gigs, buying records and listening to the John Peel show".
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Stewart Lee later read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with a 2:1.
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Stewart Lee returned the favour by going on to direct their 1999 Edinburgh show, Arctic Boosh, which remains the template for their live work.
10.
In 2001, Stewart Lee published his first novel, The Perfect Fool.
11.
Stewart Lee wrote a negative review of the show in Time Out in which he described himself as "fat" and his performance as "positively Neanderthal, suggesting a jungle-dwelling pygmy, struggling to coax notes out of a clarinet that has fallen from a passing aircraft".
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Stewart Lee used the line to advertise his next stand-up tour.
13.
Stewart Lee frequently uses negative reviews on his posters in order to put off potential audience members who are unlikely to be fans of his comedy style.
14.
In 2020, Stewart Lee wrote the documentary film King Rocker about singer Robert Lloyd and the band The Nightingales.
15.
In 2022, Stewart Lee removed his material from Spotify because it refused to stop The Joe Rogan Experience spreading COVID-19 misinformation on its platform.
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Stewart Lee's influences include Ted Chippington, Arnold Brown, Norman Lovett, Jerry Sadowitz, Simon Munnery, Kevin McAleer and Johnny Vegas.
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Stewart Lee's comedy covers a wide range of forms and subject material.
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Stewart Lee employs meta-humour, openly describing the structure and intent of the set while onstage, and abolishing the illusion of his routines as spontaneous acts.
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Stewart Lee's delivery uses various onstage personae, frequently alternating between that of an outspoken left-wing hero and that of a depressed failure and champagne socialist.
20.
Stewart Lee caused controversy on his If You Prefer a Milder Comedian tour with a routine about Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond.
21.
When he was doorstepped by a Daily Mail journalist, Stewart Lee quoted the routine by replying "It's a joke, just like on Top Gear when they do their jokes".
22.
Stewart Lee said, "People who read things like that in the Mail on Sunday and who think Clarkson is funny aren't going to come and see me, so it doesn't matter".
23.
Stewart Lee compared the practice to athletes using performance-enhancing drugs.
24.
Stewart Lee is a patron of Humanists UK, a member of Arts Emergency and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.