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" I really, really love being on stage now. "
Stewart Lee
Being
Love
Now
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" In places like Glasgow and Newcastle, audiences have a tradition of being amusingly combative. But they're not trying to ruin the act, they're trying to give you a challenge. It's like a cat playing with a mouse - the cat doesn't want the mouse to die, it wants to keep it alive for its own amusement and to be entertained by its struggle. "
Stewart Lee
Challenge
Die
Struggle
" If I could travel through time, I wouldn't go back and change anything in my life, because I'm delighted with the way it's turned out. "
Stewart Lee
Way
My Life
Change
" Lots of stand-up showcases on TV are made by production companies that also represent acts as clients, so there tends to be a demonstrable bias towards a certain group of people. "
Stewart Lee
Production
Bias
Clients
" I don't mind causing offence when I intend to, but I don't like causing it accidentally. "
Stewart Lee
Offence
Like
Intend
" I suppose we are what we are, and we use the evidence to confirm what we believe. "
Stewart Lee
Suppose
Use
Believe
" The idea of what's acceptable and what's shocking, that's where I investigate. I mean, you can't be on 'Top Gear,' where your only argument is that it's all just a joke and anyone who takes offence is an example of political correctness gone mad, and then not accept the counterbalance to that. "
Stewart Lee
Argument
Accept
You
" If I had grown up in London, I wouldn't have been as keen to become a comedian or a writer. I'd have been able to see a lot of good films and music and comedy. I'd have been distracted. As it was, I had to make it. "
Stewart Lee
Comedy
Become
Good
" I'd quite like to write a book about comics, actually. But trying to write about comics as literature, which I don't think anyone's really done before. Sometimes they're more like fan books, and I'd quite like to write one about the Marvel universe over the last 50 years. It's an unprecedented achievement to create that length of continuity. "
Stewart Lee
Book
Universe
Achievement
" If a gig goes badly, my main worry is, 'Will these people come back?' Because that will affect my ability to pay the mortgage - but nowadays, I don't really mind what happens, as I think if it all goes wrong for real, you still have to go with it. "
Stewart Lee
People
Worry
You
" You get annoyed about things in real life, and then the tragic thing is that while you are moaning on the awful injustice and suffering of something, something grimly comic will then strike you about it, like a parasite feeding off the misery of the world. "
Stewart Lee
Suffering
World
Life
" I think Russell Brand's books should be criticised for being rubbish - but it is true that there's a professional class of opinion-former who has a financial interest in their job not being taken away. "
Stewart Lee
Professional
Job
Financial
" I grew up in Solihull, on the edge of what was then the Birmingham conurbation. It was a good place to write comedy from. I didn't feel allegiance to anything. I didn't have working-class pride or upper-class superiority. "
Stewart Lee
Comedy
Edge
Feel
" Normally, when I write a tour show, it's got a title that means something - a beginning, a middle and an end - and some kind of storyline and ideas going through it over two hours. "
Stewart Lee
Two
Over
Beginning
" I've now got a 35,000-word document of quotes from people who hate me, a lot from the 'Guardian' comment threads. Mostly, I've managed to get myself into the mindset where the criticism is quite affirming. "
Stewart Lee
Mindset
Me
Now
" I wasn't the classic comedy type; I wasn't bullied or extrovert. I was more the ambitious literary one who wanted to write clever little plays. "
Stewart Lee
Classic
Clever
Comedy
" I'm forever reading on the Internet that I apparently cultivate this audience and never go badly. "
Stewart Lee
Never
Reading
Audience
" When I started on the London circuit in 1989, nationwide there were about 150 to 200 people that were what you could call alternative comedians - that weren't club comics. Now, last year when the Laughing Horse chain of clubs held a new acts competition, a thousand people entered. So, there are 800 people more. "
Stewart Lee
You
People
Now
" When I did 'Jerry Springer: The Opera,' there was a big fuss, largely centered around the misrepresentation of its content. Had Twitter existed then, that would have been over in a week because people who had actually seen it would have been able to get control of the story through social media. "
Stewart Lee
People
Media
Control
" It's interesting to me that apparently distasteful comments from the Right against weak targets tend to draw a lot less media fire than apparently distasteful comments from the Left against hard targets. That's one of the threads that runs through the show and that people hopefully pick up on. "
Stewart Lee
Interesting
Fire
People
" I'm in this for the long haul, I want to be doing this until I die. I am a standup comedian. I know a lot of people say I'm not, but I am. "
Stewart Lee
I Am
People
Long
" I think what I do is borderline art. Most people who do borderline art have to have other jobs, so I'm very grateful. "
Stewart Lee
Most
People
Think
" I thought it would be a funny concept to publish a book about stand-up comedy with Faber, the poetry publisher, and to apply to stand-up the same sort of weight of annotation that you would to a classic work of literature, an epic poem. I thought that would be funny. "
Stewart Lee
Poetry
You
Work
" I think a comedian has to be low status on some level; that gives you the right to do all sorts of jokes about all sorts of different kinds of people. "
Stewart Lee
Jokes
Right
Think
" I work a lot of things out on stage nowadays rather than writing them in big blocks. "
Stewart Lee
Out
Stage
Writing
" The only reason I look back is to check if I've been doing something wrong. I look at things from even three years ago and think, 'I wouldn't do that now.' Your life changes. "
Stewart Lee
Changes
Think
Look
" Nothing is too controversial, but you have to think about how to do it with sensitivity. I don't try to be insensitive. I think really, really carefully about exactly what things mean and how they will affect people. "
Stewart Lee
People
Mean
Think
" I'm very grateful to my adoptive family. My mother sorted my life out. "
Stewart Lee
Grateful
Mother
Life
" Oh, I can't sleep, whatever - it's a huge problem. The comedian's thing is you self-medicate with alcohol and knock yourself out - but obviously, that's not a long-term strategy. "
Stewart Lee
Alcohol
You
Yourself
" Personally, I don't have a Twitter account. I like to be in control of the way the stand up of Stewart Lee is perceived, I don't want to have to engage with individual people. Also, when I do look at it, loads of factually inaccurate things about me are written. "
Stewart Lee
Me
People
Stand
" Things that I do tend not to work out commercially. "
Stewart Lee
Things
Out
Tend