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Stewart Lee
with Alistair Barry and Andrew Maxwell
- Maxwell’s Full Mooners, The Comedy Store, London
- 29 March 2007
Lee all killer, despite the filler
Near the end of her show Josie Long claims that she has come up with a hypothetical duo that could crush the cynicism of even the most jaded misanthrope. She's drawn cartoons of them on a giant pad: a 17-year-old physics student who's stoked about working on a Terry Pratchett stage adaptation, and an old woman with a wig who offers mints indiscriminately. It's clear from the moment the audience enters the theatre, though, that the anti-gloom dream team would be unnecessary here.
Josie's standing by the door, offering us blueberries and home-made badges (mine says 'Welcome to Alicante'), chatting and eating a banana. There's left-field indie-pop (Neutral Milk Hotel, Sufjan Stevens) on the stereo, and before she starts her show she welcomes to the stage an arts-and-crafts sidekick, who will customise a pencil-case ("live!") and give it away to the most eager audience member.
The name 'Kindness and Enthusiasm' sums up Long's infectious approach to life. Throughout the show she introduces us to things she loves – a snowglobe, a second-hand duffel-coat, a goth dressed in a suit that she saw once on a bus – and tells real and imagined stories about them.
Like the gentle, awestruck ramblings of Yorkshire comic Daniel Kitson, what makes Long's shows special isn't their deft wordplay or quick-fire gags, but the chance to take a trip through a mind that is intelligent and passionate and full of a refreshing sense of magic.
It's exciting to see a comedian who wields such inventive power so young,
and although there aren't too many lines that stick with you, Josie's guileless
onstage presence and acute sense of the absurd mark her out as one of the
best young performers in British comedy today.
Jess Holland
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