"I think I hate Richard Hammond more than anyone who has ever lived," says Stewart Lee, in a new routine that has already become notorious (to Daily Mail readers, at least) about the Top Gear presenter and "professional apologist for ignorance and bullying". Despite his recent (modest) TV success, Lee burnishes his reputation here as the fierce scourge of our dimwit mainstream. Watching his work is like attending some insurrectionist cell, where truth may finally and fearlessly be spoken about the malevolent powers-that-be.
What makes it more bracing still – and funnier – is that Lee packages his rage as cool irony. Perhaps this is the only triumph he can have over the likes of Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Moyles, to kill them softly with sarcasm, timing and pregnant restraint. In Lee's hands, these are such deadly weapons that one longs to see them wielded against a wider range of targets. He tells of his disappoint ment with "media, government and culture", but confines his comedy to the first and last. It's hilarious, it's cathartic, but sometimes the Hammond-bashing gets a bit fish-in-a-barrel.
There are fine routines, too, about moving to the country for the so-called "quality of life", and about loyalty cards in coffee shops. But the showstopping skit takes aim at advertising's appropriation of art – and, by extension, of our souls. The item stems from Lee's favourite song cropping up on a cider ad, but he tilts the truth into something weird and traumatic about his family history being violated for commercial gain. Throughout, the tension between precision and disgust is tantalising. But beyond the disgust is a bruised idealism, tenderly articulated guitar in hands, at the close of the show. This is comedy with a brain and a heart, from a standup effortlessly maintaining top gear.
