hucks
Your Message Here
Well done you! Of course it's possible, Jesus. I just wouldn't hold Stewart Lee up as an example of funny, clever or otherwise.
The wit & wisdom of Frankie Boyle
- Thread starter hmg
- Start date
Well done you! Of course it's possible, Jesus. I just wouldn't hold Stewart Lee up as an example of funny, clever or otherwise.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
But being snappy isn't the point of Stewart Lee's comedy. It's the opposite - the rhythm of the way he delivers jokes is important. I can see why people dislike Stewart Lee and even I as a fan find that his his alienate-the-audience (especially as he's basically preaching to the choir nowadays) schtick can be authentically boring.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Oh for sure, I like the News Quiz. I like HIGNFY and Never Mind The Buzzcocks. I just don't have a problem with a delivery style that isn't based on the gag-laugh-gag-laugh formula of audience interaction. I like raconteurs and soliloquisers.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
OK, fine, but it sounded like you were implying that Lee isn't funny because he doesn't have a quick-fire delivery, or that this is a prerequisite for being funny.
hucks
Your Message Here
Ha, I'm not entirely sure that's not what I'm saying, at least in this specific instance. His form and function are so wrapped up together that the fact it is slow and repetitive is supposed to be funny in itself and I don't find it so and think he shouldn't forget to put in some jokes. So, he is slow and unfunny and I think one of the reasons he is unfunny is because he is slow. But in general, no, that's not the case.
it's like he is aware how slow and boring he is being and deliberately stretches it out ad infinitum with little payback in return, repeating the same lines over and over again as if you didn't understand how important it was the first time, even though it wasn't.
I don't know, I guess I'm just a troglodyte.
and I find the line of reasoning 'it's possible to be both intelligent and funny' to be a bit patronising. I find the likes of Frankie Boyle to be just as intelligent as Stewart Lee's stand up. Just because he doesn't keep pausing and smarmily repeating lines over and over again and taking 10 minutes to tell a single bit doesn't mean he is less intelligent, it's just a different style. It takes a large amount of intelligence and wit to be able to come up with quick and insightful one liners. (Which Frankie Boyle is doing a lot of the time imo)
It's the same as the argument for why jump up/teh wobblez is not as 'good' as 'deep' slow ambient inspired post-garage. I don't buy it.
I don't know, I guess I'm just a troglodyte.
and I find the line of reasoning 'it's possible to be both intelligent and funny' to be a bit patronising. I find the likes of Frankie Boyle to be just as intelligent as Stewart Lee's stand up. Just because he doesn't keep pausing and smarmily repeating lines over and over again and taking 10 minutes to tell a single bit doesn't mean he is less intelligent, it's just a different style. It takes a large amount of intelligence and wit to be able to come up with quick and insightful one liners. (Which Frankie Boyle is doing a lot of the time imo)
It's the same as the argument for why jump up/teh wobblez is not as 'good' as 'deep' slow ambient inspired post-garage. I don't buy it.
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hmg
Victory lap
What it is is people who base their entire existence on getting a few A* GCSE and a nice armful of A-Levels, maybe even a degree, who differentiate themselves as intellectuals and who walk among us as if we were swine.
blacktulip
Pregnant with mandrakes
I totally walk among everyone as if they were swine. =)
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Maybe I'm judging FB's own stuff too harshly in light of Mock The Week, but I just have this idea of him as one of these self-consciously 'edgy' comedians whose main tactic for getting laughs is the shocked, oh-my-god-did-he-really-just-say-that gasp-laugh. Is this unfair? Is there actually a lot more to him than transgression for its own sake?
hmg
Victory lap
Not really, but he's actually good at it. Compare his Taliban-assisted long jump gag with any of the hopeless top 100 Edinburgh Festival 'jokes' listed in various newspapers last week Don't want to analyse it too much, but there are three different comedy crosswinds meeting there very nicely. And he tells it like he shouldn't.
I think stewart lee has been a bit shit for quite a while now, which makes that video a bit ironic really. His meandering style only really works when you sort of feel with him in the joke and/or give a shit with where hes going with it anyway. His best moments totally outshine Frankie Boyle though, I find him a bit of a unfunny cunt and his voice really annoys me for some reason.
hucks
Your Message Here
Like HMG says, it's often well crafted transgression. His twitter feed is really interesting, some proper good gags that are (for want of a better etc etc) edgy but don't have that nasty, bullying aspect of some of his broadcasted stuff.
you
Well-known member
"I'm not entirely sure that's not what I'm saying, at least in this specific instance. His form and function are so wrapped up together that the fact it is slow and repetitive is supposed to be funny in itself and I don't find it so and think he shouldn't forget to put in some jokes. So, he is slow and unfunny and I think one of the reasons he is unfunny is because he is slow. But in general, no, that's not the case."
"it's like he is aware how slow and boring he is being and deliberately stretches it out ad infinitum with little payback in return, repeating the same lines over and over again"
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blacktulip
Pregnant with mandrakes
57:33 is the best joke on this thread so far. No thanks! =)
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
By contrast, Frankie Boyle is a fan of Lil B.
Best Stewart Lee stand-up DVD is the one where he's in Glasgow and does the bit about William Wallace being a homosexual. The way he keeps building up tension, releasing it and then building it up again is great.
Ironically, I think a lot of people find Stewart Lee more genuinely offensive than Frankie Boyle. Frankie Boyle makes jokes about rape and all that but he does it in this classic set-up/punchline way (and he is good at this). Whereas Stewart Lee is really fucking with people.
Got smashed with a bunch of Scots we met at a Marcell Dettmann night in Bristol a while ago and they were mates with Boyle, they said he used to be a massive pill-head and now lives in a huge mansion. Exciting revelations here.
I love how every thread on dissensus will eventually default to comparing one side to jump-up/hardcore and the other side to liquid/deep house.
Best Stewart Lee stand-up DVD is the one where he's in Glasgow and does the bit about William Wallace being a homosexual. The way he keeps building up tension, releasing it and then building it up again is great.
Ironically, I think a lot of people find Stewart Lee more genuinely offensive than Frankie Boyle. Frankie Boyle makes jokes about rape and all that but he does it in this classic set-up/punchline way (and he is good at this). Whereas Stewart Lee is really fucking with people.
Got smashed with a bunch of Scots we met at a Marcell Dettmann night in Bristol a while ago and they were mates with Boyle, they said he used to be a massive pill-head and now lives in a huge mansion. Exciting revelations here.
I love how every thread on dissensus will eventually default to comparing one side to jump-up/hardcore and the other side to liquid/deep house.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I hope I'm not being too much of an intellectual fascist when I say that intelligent people are generally more interesting and worthwhile to know than unintelligent people - but at the same time that real intelligence is often not well correlated with academic achievement.
My girlfriend did her BA, MA and then DPhil at Oxford and she met a lot of people there who are very good at accumulating and regurgitating knowledge - having been trained to do so from a young age at expensive private schools - but who really don't have a great deal going on between their ears in terms of independent or original thoughts.
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baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
haven't read all the comments (this is the fastest propagating Dissensus thread in months - the 1 September is significant?) but in the first instance find both Boyle and Lee funny. After a while however, albeit for very different reasons, they're both very disappointing. Boyle because he's not as radical as he thinks he is (massive understatement - saw him live and he's shite, nothing really to say except regurgitating punchlines), Lee because he's relentlessly plugging the same device of being slow and repeating lines. I listened to one of his DVDs recently after a few years of not having heard him, and it was borderline embarrassing how structured and rigid his whole schtick is ( I used to be a fan).
I'd prefer to have a pint with Simon Amstell, in short.
I'd prefer to have a pint with Simon Amstell, in short.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Fair enough, I guess it's just a style of comedy more suited to people with an attention span longer than five minutes.