Comedian Stewart Lee on rewriting Shakespeare for a post-alternative comedy makeover
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2023
- It's not often someone is asked to rewrite a piece of Shakespeare's work. But comedian Stewart Lee has taken on the challenge - at the invitation of a top theatre director.
He's updated a key scene from Macbeth which he says was in dire need of a post-alternative comedy makeover and the Royal Shakespeare Company, no less, is staging his efforts.
(Subscribe: bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe)
-----------------------
Follow us:
Facebook - / channel4news
Twitter - / channel4news
TikTok - / c4news
Instagram - / channel4news
Stewart Lee can write jokes - he just chooses not to.
Not actually true. His stand-up is full of jokes, but just not the obviously (sock it to ‘em!) punchline kind. He’s playing with us when he says that.
@@titteryenot4524 I was quoting Stewart Lee himself :D
@@chrisgreen6259 I know you were. Lee is being disingenuous and knowingly playful when he says this. 👍
@@titteryenot4524I feel like we're mansplaining his jokes to one another 🤣
@@chrisgreen6259 👍 You’re right. Let’s call the whole thing off.
"Can you have tragedy without comedy?"
*Stewart's eyes light up as he praises the question, looking forward to answering it*
"I don't think you can..."
Immediately cuts away before he's allowed any explanation
Yes you can, just watch a Stewart Lee standup.
I read this before I reached the bit, but it was even funnier than I was expecting!
These days if you say you are William Shakespeare you get throw in jail
What? Just for saying you're William Shakespeare. When did this come in?
These days.
That Shakespeare has let himself go
nah just transed into a fat lesbian
😂
Morrissey has let himself go
Macbeth hast alloweth himself wend.
Falstaff has shaved off his beard.
Bravo!
first one of these to make me laugh in about 3 years, thank you for that
Brilliant
Speakst thou verily, as a pear cyder wrung only of the purest fruit of the same.
I would go to see this, but only so I could speak scathingly of it afterwards and snidely comment on how much Stewart Lee has in all possible respects let himself go.
This makes a nice change...most comedians of his generation seem content to spend their days whinging and whining about how people don't find them funny anymore.
I was pessimistically expecting more of the same whining from Stew, because I remember him making Remarks about such things in the past, but he pleasantly surprised me in response to that ridiculous leading question from the interviewer!
Comedy is a necessity when you're surrounded by corruption and idiocy, and being kind to others doesn't mean your jokes can't bite hard - just that you aim them at the deserving, instead of at the vulnerable or powerless.
Shakespeare wrote some banger political satire in his day and the spiritual descendants of the court jester are still doing it today.
@@suitov "Comedy is a necessity when you're surrounded by corruption and idiocy, and being kind to others doesn't mean your jokes can't bite hard" - so kind comedy aimed at inanimate objects and straight white male Trump supporters?
Wheeeeeeeheeheeeeeeeee sounds like a riot.
Wokeness... hmmm, somehow cancer comes to mind. It spreads along generational lines, originating from dark corners, and disseminated through warehouses of children kept there for several hours per day.
Those from his generation are still as funny as ever, but the more recent gen has been given the cancer.
Let's not forget that Stewart is in a position of privilege. He's had the benefit of people not finding him funny for years.
he's the 41st best standup of all time actually
If you don't like it then you just have to raise your game
Stewart Lee is a genius. Would love to watch this.
He used to be great in 90's with Richard Herring
Now he is an out-of-shape authoritarian coward who hates free speech and anyones who disagrees with him
just a tool of the establishment really
I can't believe he's not a bigger name. He's one of the greats imo
@@EdEddington Here in America people still think that Lee and Herring was a really crappy steak sauce...
Walter Breisky, Chancellor of Austria for a single day in late January of 1922, has let himself go.
At least someone making these comments has done it right.
How, why, when do you come up with this?
William Shakespeare's let himself go.
🤣🤣🤣
Micky Dolenz from the Monkees has let himself go
He can rewrite Shakespeare all he wants but the dude couldn't cut the mustard on a panel game show.
You don’t cut mustard. You spread it!
And your hero is a junkie
I look at Stew and I think "Christ! I've let myself go."
KD Lang is looking well
Stewart Lee has let himself go
Maybe someday Shakespeare will be considered important enough to have an opera written about him. Like Jerry Springer...
Tragedy without comedy is called Racine and it is very great.
Tintin's really let 'isself go !
He doth giveth upon to us straight. Like ye pear cider, did maketh from hundred percent pear.
Satire and sarcasm are the tools with which we can fight the corruption surrounding politicians and the corporate oligarchy.
Can’t tell if this is a satirically ironic comment.
@@cannibalholocaust3015 No....
Hows that working out?@@stevenleighton1947
What total kak. If you can't express legal non racist opinions without a bunch of hypersensitive trolls trying to cancel you, then what's the point of using satire to fight more entrenched corruption. Lee that huge blancmange of a ego, is totally complicit and supportive of a society in which differences of opinions are not tolerated. One that happens, your basically under a form of control, that is totalitarian. Lee loves it because he's one of the promoturds of this type of world.
Nope.
Satire has never worked in my lifetime. The people just sit and laugh, so the authorities can just ignore it. Every year there's a new pretentious satirist who thinks it will do something, without any awareness of its record of failure. In fact if I were in power, I would secretly facilitate satirists myself, to release some pressure. A bit like protest marches - they are so completely ineffectual that I would fund them too. They let stupid people think they're smart and that they've been heard.
Dominic Littlewood's let himself go.
Was it not Groucho Marx who said "Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die"?
04:00 brutal cutaway
Tragically funny edit there, lol
"Drinking Prosecco and watching Lionel Richie ironically". . . Terry Christian actually wrote a joke!!! Wow
Nice to know there is still some culture in the country, and positive with it.
Big Ron the market stall holder (but without a beard) from Eastenders has let himself go
The expression on that young actress's face is like " I'm..not..sure...What THE FU£#"
First time I've ever been excited at the thought of Shakespeare
Channel 4 still has news .
The Curious Orange has really let himself go.
yeah, we've got all day for your yes or no questions.
She doesnt ask him if hes aeen Game of Thrones
Willm Shackper has really let himself go
😂
I think Will Shackper would most likely approve.
He's let himself go hasn't he? 🙂
Defacing history and demoralization, Stewart Lee is pleasing his masters. Used to love the guy.
4:34 what her name please
Banquo's ghost has let his gory locks go...
I hope Stewart does not get cancelled 😂
Stewart won't get cancelled, because he supports the establishment.
He just thinks that he does so 'ironically'.
That Channel 5 has let itself go.
Jeeez...that John Quade has really let himself go.
Graham lineham
Channel 4, I love your news coverage very, very much and think you're the best around, but this is painful.
Appropriate for Channel 4 news; just a handful of like-minded people in a small, dark, echoey room.
And you, fashinated by them.
Yep, anything that attracts large audience is automatically better.... like eastenders perhaps
The owner of the Golden Dragon has let himself go.
Stuart Lee is not🎉 a 😊 traitor😂
Nah I’m good
5 stars the guardian
Franklyn Ajaye, the great, much more influential comedian already did this back in the 1970s and it was better, this looks rubbish.
Hey Channel 4, wtf is post-alternative comedy?
Yeah its' called tragicomedy but you knew that anyway.. Excellent stuff though. When your best comedians would do better to switch roles with your foremost politicians there's obviously a problem.
Ian Duncan Smith has let himself go.
I saw Shakespeare today, he looked old and fat and sad
What next for Stewart Lee. A sitcom set in a police station called 'Allo 'Allo 'Allo perhaps?
I hope he reads these comments. He'll love them 😅
This is a genuinely stupid idea because the particular scene they are cutting out is actually vital to the entire play, it's not a throwaway or mismatched piece. The lines and subjects have been very carefully chosen by WS to pivot the play and give relevance, They're highly contextual and symbolic. They are also, away from the play itself, HUGELY important piece of writing in that there is nothing in Shakespeare quite like these lines. They are unique, and hilarious, and to cut them is just moronic.
So it'll make fine comedy then. Absurdity's a cornerstone.
@@grabble7605 So comedy is just drama that's badly written?
Nice.
5 stars, The Guardian
"Woke is good for comedy" I like that comment.
Stewart Lee needs to stop drinking and go to the gym
He's not fit to lick Shakespeare's boots
If only you'd stopped after the third word I might've given you a thumbs-up thingy.
@@dannyfenris7708 That really upsets me🤣😆
Stewart Lee would love this comment and would probably agree 😅😂
It looks like James O'Brien 🤢
Oh Christ was she in Molly and Mack? Simply awful.
A comedian acting woke to get them through these times is like dodging the draft or deserting your unti in a war that endangers your way of life.
Depends on what your way of life is, I suppose.
I dont think there are many fakers of 'wokeness' It gains them nothing but casual abuse from 'antiwoke' signallers. Anti-woke is disguise for people who cant say what they'd promote affirmatively or be specific about what they dissaprove of. Woke isnt a political party manifesto, its a leaning.
Never desert your unti.
For many boomers not being able to say the n word is their Dunkirk.
@@thejoin4687 The way of life is to be funny and not feel suffocated so much, that you can't express yourself.
Hilarious to think this has-been ‘comedian’ could even hold a candle to the greatest playwright in history.
His stand up is brilliant though
How many Olivier awards does Shakespeare have?
None.
Checkmate.
@@DavidHeffron78Shakespeare's plays have been translated in to every major living language, and continue to be performed 400 years after his death. Stewart Lee is a weirdo lefty fart sniffer. Checkmate
@MAT-UK1978 Yes, because clearly this is equivalent to Stewart Lee inviting Shakespeare outside into the pub car park to take the discussion further.
@@dannyfenris7708 Hey Ferris: Put a sock in it you lefty weirdo!
Clowning for the regime is not comedy, buds
How is this for the regime?
@@DJB01 Wokeism and corporatism go hand in hand.
Wokeism is always politically motivated.
Politics + corporatism?
Yeah.
@@fuckamericanidiot explain what woke means. (If you’re able to do it while avoiding derogatory terminology, even better.)
@@DJB01 Shakespeare was puppet of Jacobean regime
Clowning for 60 million dollar Netflix contract definitely is tho amirite
So the porter is a disabled woman and Macbeth appears to be black and no-one mentions it - that's funny.
3:12 To be "canceled" simply means that people have publicly disagreed with you about a thing. To fear that or even be so horribly bothered and angry about it as some are is just pathetic.
Meanwhile "cancel culture" is a simply myth - or rather, propaganda. Business has always reacted to public feedback and threats to its bottom line. That's all 'cancel culture' is - business as usual. It's merely the increased influence of would-be consumers (which is a good thing) via social media and such that's made it seem like some new 'culture' thing...But it's nothing new. To whine about people disagreeing with you is narcissistic and weak. To whine about business basically just existing is silly.
Gross and wrong comment.
Cancel culture is when a bunch of bitter misanthropic gremlins pile on somebody to destroy their lives and livelihood because they said something "problematic".
People are not "business".
If you don't like a product, don't buy it.
That is NOT the same as actively trying to ruin an individual's life and career.
Where does one even begin with a comment like this? You are utterly clueless, you have no idea what you are talking about, and everything you have said is wrong.
I love Stewart Lee but I'm not a fan of woke for a myriad of reasons that I'd happily bring to the table.
Stewart's a well read bloke and he can't be ignorant of novels like 'Bend Sinister' by Nabokov and Orwell's '1984' which warn against totalitarian ideas, some of which I think the woke agenda veers towards.
I would be interested to see how he squares a comedian like Lenny Bruce (controversial for his time and presumably an influence) with the rather worrying trend of cancelling artists for not toeing a woke line.
What is the "woke agenda"?
Which comedians are "cancelled"?
@@andrewstrong1879 Graham Linehan
@@paulgelsthorpe3712he's not cancelled. I saw him standing outside the Scottish Parliament. He was standing on a coffee table crying and shitting.
@@DavidHeffron78
He looked fat.
And depressed.
And fat.
“Do you feel constantly at risk of being cancelled?”
A hilarious thing to say to this guy. I find him funny, he’s got a great comedy brain.
But Christ, he’s the most cowardly comedian since Herring.
He's a coward cuz he doesn't make rape jokes or makes fun of minorities?
"'Woke' has been great for comedy"? Good grief. smh I never know when Stew is being Stewart Lee or being 'Stewart Lee'. I'm not sure he does anymore. Let's get one thing straight: authoritarian identitarianism is killing comedy. I'd have thought Stew would have at least some empathy for the plight of one of his heroes, Jerry Sadowitz.
Do not comply. No to vaccine passports, no to mandatory vaccines. No to masks, no to tests, a total disgrace
Free Palestine. Xxx
@@jamescarr4662 With every 10 gallons.
You need to get help or up your meds.
@purplemonkeydishwasher696 You want to free Palestine from Islam?
I'm very confused.
Oh dear. How the mighty have fallen.
A memeber of the Hamas militant group has let himself go
I hate Stewart Lee with a passion. He’s like Ian Huntley to me.
as I never found her funny, the trans comedian Stewart Lee (now a fat lesbian) this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
He's just not funny.
Quite the man of the people. Supporting 'Wokeism' worst of all. And then what a surprise that he focusses on working on the text of a pretentiousness-magnet, who is the most mainstream writer in history.