Seinfeld was a sitcom about nothing. Stewart Lee now presents a standup show about nothing – or so he wants us to think. He's a middle-aged dad, you see, and "nothing happens to me now". So what can he write about? The answer is the process itself. This is Lee at his most self-referential and metatextual, if not always his most exciting. It's not just his own jokes he deconstructs tonight, but the impulse behind the show, his career, his self. "I don't know who I am any more," he says – and, with a persona composed of this many subversions and quadruple bluffs, that's hardly surprising.
Not that a strong personality doesn't come across. More bilious than ever, Lee gripes at his fellow comics, at his fairweather new audience, at the "feral, Lord of the Flies" online world. There's self-disgust, too: he apologises for the bittiness and badness of this show. But none of this can be taken on trust. It's becoming a tic with Lee to tell a true story then admit he made it all up. It's a trick we now see coming, which can be a wearying feeling. His cerebral pose, and disdain for jokes and convention, is a sort of trick, too: it certainly doesn't stop him defaulting to jokes and convention when he fancies a big laugh. Reading out eccentric or abusive material culled from the internet, as Lee does here, is a standup standby these days; and his routine about Tim Rice, Anneka Rice and basmati rice is as cheap as laughs come (and none the worse for it).
That was part of a piece about celebrity Tories, the opening half hour of the show having ranged from Bin Laden to Dale Farm to the Libyan uprising. Later, Lee puts to bed the claim that comedians never joke about Islam, and seeks comic inspiration as he drives up and down the M4. It's enjoyable to see Lee in this looser format – even if, as he admits, the show lacks cohesion. There are also fewer instances of that highwire skill he has of making us laugh without knowing why. Closest is a riff on political history with reference points culled from his son's Scooby-Doo DVD: an experimental spin on the comedy of new parenthood. At such moments, Lee demonstrates that an uneventful life need be no barrier to provocative comedy.
