Stewart Lee

Stewart Graham Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English comedian.

His stand-up routine is characterised by repetition, internal reference, and deadpan delivery.

Stewart Graham Lee was born on 5 April 1968 in Wellington, Shropshire.

He was adopted as a child and grew up in Solihull, West Midlands.

His adoptive parents separated when he was four, and he was raised by his mother.

He attended the Solihull School on a part scholarship, and received what he calls a "waifs and strays bursary" because he was adopted.

He participated in the school's mountain-walking club, which went on regular excursions to Snowdonia; the original members of the grindcore band Napalm Death also took part.

As a teenager, Lee suffered from ulcerative colitis, which he has said caused significant weight loss and made him look "cadaverously thin".

He has described how at the age of 16, he was "doing a lot of reading, going to gigs, buying records and listening to the John Peel show".

He later read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with a 2:1.

While a student at Oxford in the 1980s, he wrote and performed comedy in a revue group called The Seven Raymonds with Richard Herring, Emma Kennedy and Tim Richardson but did not perform in the well-known Oxford Revue, though he did write for and direct the 1989 revue.

Lee began his career in 1989 and formed the comedy duo Lee and Herring with Richard Herring.

Having moved to London and begun performing stand-up comedy after university, he rose to greater prominence in 1990, winning the prestigious Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition.

With Herring, Lee wrote material for BBC Radio 4's On the Hour (1991), which was anchored by Chris Morris and was notable for the first appearance of Steve Coogan's celebrated character, Alan Partridge, for which Lee and Herring wrote early material.

Owing to creative differences with the rest of the cast, Lee and Herring did not remain with the group when On The Hour moved to television as The Day Today.

In 1992 and 1993, he and Herring wrote and performed Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World for BBC Radio 4, before moving to BBC Radio 1, for one series of Fist of Fun (1993), followed by three series of Lee and Herring.

In 1995-6 two series of a television version of Fist of Fun were broadcast by BBC2, followed in 1998-9 by two series of This Morning With Richard Not Judy.

Throughout the late nineties he continued performing solo stand-up (even whilst in the double act Lee and Herring) and collaborated with, amongst others, Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh.

Indeed, though Barratt and Fielding had worked together in the past, the first seeds of the Boosh were sown while working as part of Lee's Edinburgh show King Dong vs Moby Dick in which Barratt and Fielding played a giant penis and a whale, respectively.

Lee returned the favour by going on to direct their 1999 Edinburgh show, Arctic Boosh, which remains the template for their live work.

During late 2000 and early 2001, Lee retired from stand-up comedy.

In 2001, he co-wrote and co-directed the West End hit musical Jerry Springer: The Opera, a critical success that sparked a backlash from Christian right groups who staged a series of protests outside its early stagings.

In 2001, Lee published his first novel, The Perfect Fool.

In the same year he performed Pea Green Boat, a stand-up show which revolved around the deconstruction of the Edward Lear poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" and a tale of his own broken toilet.

This would later be condensed to focus mainly on the poem itself, and a 15-minute version aired on Radio 4.

2001 became the first year since 1987 that he did not perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

While Lee found himself gradually performing less stand-up and moving away from the stage, he continued his directorial duties on television.

Two pilots were made for Channel 4, Cluub Zarathustra and Head Farm, but neither was developed into a series.

The former featured all the ingredients that would later appear in Attention Scum, a BBC Two series fronted by Simon Munnery's "League Against Tedium" character, which also featured Kevin Eldon, Johnny Vegas and Roger Mann, as well as Richard Thomas and opera singer Lore Lixenberg.

At the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Lee directed Johnny Vegas's first DVD, Who's Ready For Ice Cream?.

In 2003, he said that his favourite bands include The Fall, Giant Sand and Calexico and that he listens to "a lot of jazz, 60s and folk music but I really like Ms. Dynamite and The Streets".

In 2004, he returned to stand-up comedy with the show Standup Comedian.

Lee is a regular music critic for The Guardian.

In January 2005, Jerry Springer: The Opera, a satirical musical/opera written by Lee and Richard Thomas and based upon The Jerry Springer Show, was broadcast on BBC Two, following a highly successful West End run for several years, and as a prelude to the show's UK Tour.

In 2007, Go Faster Stripe released a 25-minute edit on CD and 10" Vinyl.

In 2009 The Times referred to Lee as "the comedian's comedian, and for good reason" and named him "face of the decade".

In 2011, he won British Comedy Awards for Best Male Television Comic and Best Comedy Entertainment Programme for his series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle.

He has written music reviews for publications including The Sunday Times.

In 2012, he was placed at No. 9 on a poll of the 100 most influential people in UK comedy.

In 2018, The Times named him as the best current English-language comedian.