Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle.

I first heard about the likelihood of this a few years ago when Stewart mentioned making the pilot on one of his live DVD performances, and I remember being a tad excited by the prospect of the return of hard-hitting, cerebral and innovative standup comedy to UK television.

This alone could make it the best year for TV comedy since 2004 (Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Mighty Boosh and Green Wing all in one sweet sweetyear! Ahhh, the good old days....). Ahhhhh!

Then, in another DVD (recorded the following year) the entire 'entomologists' piece relies on the notion that the series was not commissioned. And it wasn't. But, it seems that a recent kull in BBC management resulted in the series being recommissioned. Ace!

The titles are hilarious to anybody familiar with Stewart Lee's comedy persona. To anyone who is not, they are just a fat bloke failing to look childish then looking bemused instead. Which is funny.

The peogram itself is hit and miss though. I'd rather it was just a straight half hour of standup which I think would suit his style which is based on a slow build up and repetition. His standup is beautifully crafted that it seems a shame to break it up with sketches - even if they do mean he can give his mates (such as The Actor Kevin Eldon, The Curious Orange and The-Bloke-Who-Wrote-The-Joke-'People often say to me me...')-Which-Joe-Pasquali-Stole. (He's called Michael Redmond). The sketches are funny enough and the Channel 4 series were especially good in episode two; but I still think that they get in the way and can sometimes feel a bit clunky and spoil the flow. The Delboy sketch was a good example of this. It looked expensive as well!

There is a wee smidgen of a cheeky 'fuck you' to the medium which ignored him for ten years and good for him, they fucking deserve it. Ignorant fuckers.

All in all it's still great to see a standup being given this sort of opportunity for the first time since (I think) Dave Allen and hopefully the sketches will improve or else I'll grow into them, because I'd hate for them to spoil it.



PS- Lee's old mucker Herrin can be found here playing Andrew Collings's sidekick.

(It is dead good, my favourite podcast by a long way)