Across the Stew-niverse: A podcast about Stewart Lee

Melancholy. Hopeful. Whimsical. Poetic. Bearded. These are just some of the accusatory adjectives that have been laid at the feet of the Yorkshire born overlord of theatrical stand-up, Daniel Kitson. To understand the sheer breadth of his influence upon the comedy scene in the UK and beyond would take more words than the count here allows, so you'll have to settle for me telling you that this man is a pretty big fucking deal, actually. And all the better for the casual comedy punter having not got the foggiest idea who he is.
To understand the man, you have to look at his work, so this episode sees Dan and Joe take a road trip to Manchester to witness a work in progress attempt at Pith, a melancholy, hopeful, whimsical, poetic, and still quite beardy mix of stand-up and storytelling. The show demonstrates exactly why Daniel Kitson is so revered by his peers, as well as critics and comedy nerds, and other assorted undesireable folk that you wouldn't want to take home to Mother.
Dan and Joe loved it so much that they wanted an excuse to talk about it on the pod, and figured that Stew proclaiming Daniel Kitson to be "all comedians' favourite comedian" is good enough reason to shoehorn it in.

If ATS podcast episodes were to adopt the naming conventions of the popular nineties American Sitcom Friends, this episode would be "The One Where Dan Gets Cancelled"
After a minor misunderstanding over the conventions regarding the context of analysis and reportage vs actual bigotry, Dan gets himself into hot water (no, not the popular male only stand-up venue in the North West of England) and doubles down like a child trying to save himself from being told off by someone trying to teach him something.
Shame.
Elsewhere, Dan says things like "maybe he killed himself" in an insensitive manner, proving that his judgement of tone in comedy has been adversely affected by his absolute inability to do it himself properly. Dan and Joe also discuss Hotel based anecdotes and talk at a far greater length than they should do about an episode of television that lasts for less than half an hour. No one learns anything and Dan wishes he was was a frog who was dead, or something.
Comedy!

Do not adjust your podcast listening equipment. This is not a glitch, virus, or other undesirable affect of living in the modern media landscape. We are in fact back.
Now, whilst this may be an unwelcome event for most of you, to those of you who care about such things, we are sorry for the lengthy absence, it will probably happen again because no one is paying us to do this (could you imagine?) and life is just like that sometimes. If we are still doing this by Edinburgh next year, this will 100% happen again.
Anyway, in this episode, Dan and Joe fight to hide their disappointment at still having to talk about Comedy Vehicle series one, and not "If You Prefer a Milder Comedian..." or any of the later Comedy Vehicle series' were the real gold lives and there are no sketches to disguise the lack of punchlines.
This one is about religion, apparently.

Here, Dan and Joe step back in time to a world when no one had any money and the world was on the brink of complete financial collapse. No, it wasn't last week. It was fifteen years ago. And although the world recovered financially for a little while, normal service has been resumed and no one has any money again.
"AT LEAST WE STILL HAVE STEWART LEE" I hear you cry. Yes, but at what cost?
In this episode, Stew gets sketch happy in an attempt to disguise a stand up routine that didn't particularly catch fire in the same way as his other stuff, and yet was still better than 99% of what someone called Russell might do. We talk about it a bit but often get bored and ramble about other stuff.
COME SEE DAN IN EDINBURGH!

Dan caught up with bona fide COMEDY GENIUS Dave Cohen (Horrible Histories, HIGNFY, Spitting Image, loads of other stuff) to Stew the Fat (yes we will continuously repeat these tedious puns) about his days as a stand up in the erly days of Alternative Comedy, establishing the now world famous Comedy Store players (with, amongst others, Paul Merton and some unknown Canadian called Mike Myers... wonder where he ended up?) and being nominated (and not nominated for an even better show) for an Edinburgh Fringe Award.
We also talk about crossing paths with a young comedian called Stewart Lee, and his thoughts on how Stew has developed and improved upon his craft since his early days on the circuit. On the subject of Stew, Dave and I spend a lot of time discussing the "character" of The Comedian Stewart Lee, Dave's thoughts as a comedy writer and tutor on what sort of work will have gone into developing the act, and a little thought experiment that looks at what sort of sitcom the "character" of Stewart Lee might fit into.
Basic-Lee (yes, that's one of Stew's, but a pun nonetheless), this episode is excellent and should not be missed.
TRIGGER WARNING: THERE IS A SINGLE USE OF A RACIAL SLUR, IN THE CONTEXT OF TALKING ABOUT THE USE OF SLURS BY WORKING MEN'S CLUB COMICS.
You can keep up with Dave's work at his website: Home - Dave Cohen
SEE STEWNIVERSE LIVE AT BRIGHTON FRINGE: Across the Stew-niverse: A Podcast About Stewart Lee - Brighton Fringe
SEE DAN'S WORK IN PROGRESS LIVE AT BRIGHTON FRINGE: Daniel Powell: Breathless (Work in Progress) - Brighton Fringe
SEE JOE'S WORK IN PROGRESS LIVE AT THE BRIGHTON FRINGE: I should be dead - Brighton Fringe