Luther (BBC)

Britain does crime drama really well. The BBC have a knack for doing it really, really well. And I think, last year, they managed to squeeze out the one I've found most interesting and so enjoyable! Last year the BBC gave us Luther.

The series stars The Wire actor Idris Elba as DCI John Luther, a troubled man with problems in every area of his life - a wife who no longer wants him, a genius sociopath stalker threatening to turn his life upside-down, a serious anger management problem and a tough case to crack, every bloody episode.

The first series begins with Luther chasing a man through an abandoned factory and, when a high platform gives way beneath the pursued, "not saving" a child kidnapper from a long fall into the bowels of the building.

Seven months later and Luther is recovering from a mental breakdown, a split from his wife and suspension from his job while the factory incident is investigated. We join him just as the investigation is dropped due to lack of evidence and he regains his badge.

His first case involves the execution-like murder of the parents of one Alice Morgan, a child genius. Luther believes from the off that Alice is the one to blame for her parents' death, despite there being no evidence, no murder weapon, no motive. And so begins a game of intellectual cat and mouse between the determined and talented DCI Luther and the cold and calculating genius, Alice. Once the pieces are in place on the board the rest of the series follows a "crime of the week" format, led towards a shocking and heartbreaking finale, with gentle encouragement from Luther's sociopath stalker.

The story arc is fascinating and unsettling and the "crime of the week" elements are made all the more interesting by the fact that there's no mystery to them. It's all about the chase. Luther is one of the most watchable characters in recent times, in equal measure morally sound and recklessly spontaneous. And he has one hell of a temper on him!

This is not good news for anyone who gets in his way! The host of "criminals of the week" get their comeuppance at the hands of this brute of a copper. I won't go too deep into the stories but the series contains some of the most horrific murderers you could think of.

Also in the path of this juggernaut is Paul McGann as Luther's wife's lover, Mark - his wife is played by Torchwood star Indira Varma. As the lives of Alice Morgan, Zoey Luther and Mark North collide with John Luther's own, it seems than nobody's lives will ever be quite the same as they once were.

This is the sort of series that throws its villains at you and allows you to watch - there's no whodunnit here. Instead the BBC have given us a deeply harrowing psychological crime drama filled to the brim with some of the most memorable characters to ever grace the screen. Alice Morgan's cold seductive charm is utterly compelling in particular; all credit to the wonderful Ruth Wilson for that! And the good news is that there's a second series in the pipeline. So eyes open for that, too. 

If you haven't seen the first series yet, it's available fairly cheaply on BBC DVD. I urge you to catch up. I promise that it's a six hour slice of your life that you will not grudge sacrificing. Luther is easily the most emotionally confusing crime drama I've seen in a long, long time. You'll love John AND you'll hate him. Sometimes within the space of one sentence! And it's that moral blurred line of all the characters that make this show so utterly, utterly unmissable.

Young Love

I wanted to share this with you all - it's not a new song, it's not an obscure one. You've probably all heard it before. But it is almost perfect, lyrically. This song speaks to me :)

"Bathtub"

This is a very pretty little short film. Haunting and strange. Take a look 

(Not Safe For Work).

"Bathtub" Short Film on Vimeo
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Las Palmas

COMING SOON!! A short film by Johannes Nyholm - I don't think I've had such a wonderful feeling about such an odd little film ever before. Take a look at the trailer below and click here for more info on the film from the Facebook fan page.

Monsters Are Real

The time has come. We're mere weeks away from the start of Doctor Who Series Six and to whet our appetites the BBC have released a short prequel to the two-part opening story, The Impossible Astronaut - thought to be showing in its entirety over Easter Weekend. Have a look at the prequel now, get yourself all worked up, you would even be forgiven for freaking out a little.

I can't bloody wait!

The More Obscure The Better

Afternoon telly has never been so good. I've even started to not worry about missing The Chase. Why? Because Pointless is back on. For the last few weeks the show that everyone loves to play along with at home has had me loving playing along at home. Part of the reason I love it so much is because I'm good at it.

If you've never seen it - if you have a job, in other words - then I'll break it down for you here. The game works like this: 100 people are asked a question - name as many Eurovision Song Contest Host Countries as you can, or something - and their answers are logged. Then, the studio contestants have to give their own answers with an aim to offering the LEAST popular answer given. However many people, from the 100 asked, gave the same answer as the contestant, that's the number of "points" they get - high scoring answers are bad - you're aiming for a "Pointless Answer" - an answer that nobody from the 100 gave.

It's a sort of reverse Family Fortunes. Only much, much better. Hosted by Alexander Armstrong and overseen by brainy know-all Richard Osman - both hilarious - this show is a now, for me, simply unmissable. Because it's such an easy game to "play along with" it works well as a social pastime - how sad, haha! If you've never seen it, watch it next week! BBC Two, 4:30pm. You won't regret it!

The Budget 2011 ~ or ~ CelebraTory: Live In London!

I've waited weeks for today's Budget from Chancellor George Osborne. Finally, today I sat down to watch it and took almost none of it in. Why? Because I just cannot take a single member of our coalition government seriously. I faze out. I faded away.

Instead I sat, nodding my head along with the ConDem Front Bench as they pretended to give a shit about normal people and slipped into bizarre fantasy territory. 

In my new fantasy world there's this boy band. They're called CelebraTory. They sing songs about how they like to fuck the country up while wiping flecks of caviar and swan grease from they dripping, dishonest chins. Like the best boy bands before them they have chemistry. It's not good chemistry; none of them look like they really want to be there (which is ironic, since we don't want them there either!), but it's chemistry nonetheless.

George, Dave, Danny and Nick (the one everyone forgets the name of, bless 'im) were as smooth and cool as JLS at their gig today, with their colourful ties - a different colour for each member - nodding in unison to the rhythm of their own frightened heartbeats, knowing as they do that before long the axe will fall and their 'time  at the top of the charts' will end. 

But like all boy bands, they'll throw out a few "special announcements" before they go, squeezing every penny they can from their fans and their fans' families, before fading away into musical oblivion, to become nothing but a nasty footnote, remembered as bitterly as that 'old rock favourite', "Iron Lady" (ask your Dad about her controversial career in the 80s!).

I hate when groups are "put together" like this. It's always an awful time for music. Especially with "CelebraTory" topping the charts... I much prefer the more sensible, thoughtful music of "The Ed Mili Band".

[I realise that if you wanted info on what Osborne's budget speech contained you will be disappointed by this post. Try looking over the very helpful Budget Breakdown from the BBC website, here, instead.]

* Music = Politics.

Christopher And His Kind

Matt Smith, best known as the Eleventh Doctor is a bloody fine little actor! I think a lot of people forget this, writing him off an "a relatively unknown actor" - which, to most people, I suppose he is. 

But if you know your telly, if you know what to look out for, he's a valued and talented actor. And once again, in the BBC adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's memoir, 'Christopher and his Kind' Smith shines once more. Chronicling Isherwood's time in Berlin, as a gay man in the years leading up to the war, this drama - at just an hour and a half - is one of the best things to have landed on our screens in a long while. 

Once more, the BBC proves it puts out the best drama with the best actors. There isn't a bad cast member in this programme. A credit list of almost unknown faces, instantly recognisable by the strength of their performances in this and other shows. Oh, and Lindsay Duncan. She's in it too, also brilliant.

It's quite a leap from what we usually see Smith doing - but since we usually see him running through time and space fighting monsters and aliens, that's hardly surprising. This is an intelligent, adult, heartbreaking tale - and true. Well worth an hour and a half of anyone's life. I'd urge you to read the book first though. :)

Doctor Who: 'Space' & 'Time' (Comic Relief 2011)

Well, it was great to have them back on our screens, even if it was only for 8 minutes... Here's parts 1 and 2 of the 2011 Doctor Who Comic Relief Special. Brace yourselves for a cheeky little scene, there are some smashing lines in here: funny, sexy, clever.

I love this little skit - Brilliant stuff :)

PART ONE - SPACE

PART TWO - TIME

Twenty Twelve (BBC Four)

Take a pinch of The Office, some Green Wing staff, a teaspoonful of The Thick Of It, the hot frumpy one off Spaced and the voice of one Ex-Doctor and what do you get? That's right - new BBC Four comedy "Twenty Twelve", a mockumentary series following the fictional goings on in the offices of those responsible for making sure the 2012 Olympic Games go to plan - "with hilarious consequences".

Starring some of the best comedy actors in Britain, including Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Olivia Coleman (Peep Show), Karl Theobald (Green Wing), Jessica Hynes (Spaced), Vincent Franklin (The Thick Of It) and Amelia Bullmore (I'm Alan Partridge) - and with a tongue in cheek voice over from Tenth Doctor David Tennant - Twenty Twelve almost shines as brightly as all of the shows whose cast it seems to have stolen. Almost. But not quite.

Monday's first episode, of six, began rather cautiously. Some of the jokes were signposted so clearly that the laughs just couldn't be tickled out of me, while other laughs came from things I thought should have happened as the episode went on, but didn't. It's something I will definitely stick with - if nothing else, it's another three hours of Theobald and Coleman! That's never something a proud comedy fan should ever turn down.

I have a feeling that, like so many things lately, this one will grow on me as the series progresses. By week five I shall no doubt be singing its praises to all who find themselves unlucky enough to encounter me. But we'll see. It's worth a look. BBC Four, Mondays at 10.30pm, or catch up on iPlayer. Go on! You know you want to!

Paul (Contains Mild Spoilers)

Part sci fi, part comedy caper, part old-fashioned American road-trip buddy movie - Paul has something for everyone! Before I go into it in detail (or whatever) I want to highlight a few coincidental similarities between this movie and the game I've been playing all week, Destroy All Humans: There's the wise-cracking alien, the thought-implants, the female villain overseeing events - all of which have been staples of a decent alien movie for years. The fact that these similarities stood out to me may be because I've over-saturated myself with alien stuff recently. 

But anyway, on to the movie itself!Paul follows two British nerds, Graeme and Clive, as they trek across the most famous UFO hotspots in the States while visiting Comic-Con. 

Just outside Area 51 they encounter foul-mouthed alien slacker Paul. Paul has escaped from military custody and just wants to go home. As they set out on a road trip like no other the trio face threats from Men In Black, state police and gun-toting Christians. It's an hour and a half of pure cheeky laughs and some very tender moments, along with lashings of sci fi nerd in-jokes - some blatant, some so niche that you'd be forgiven for not noticing them at all! 

It's a great little movie which satisfies to the last minute. Pegg and Frost are on top form, both as actors and as writers. There's a pretty smart supporting cast, especially Jason Bateman's MIB Agent Zoil (look out for a joke about his name that went over the heads of many).

But the stand-out performance in the film is the title character himself. Paul, voiced by Seth Rogen, is wonderful. He's rude, disgusting, sweary - a perfect interpretation of what an alien being might be like having spent sixty years socialising with American soldiers.

What makes this movie so charming is how it manages to throw away the obvious joke in favour of some little reference to an oft-little-known sci fi movie from yesteryear. It's laugh-out-loud funny on the surface, with all the best lines coming from our hero, but filled to the brim with plenty to keep the nerds happy too. And it's just short enough not to begin dragging on.

More than any of the other movies penned by Pegg and Frost, Paul is the most "America-friendly" (hardly surprisingly), yet still manages to feel British to its bones. Think Men In Black meets Dumb And Dumber with swearing and you're almost there. A perfect date movie for a couple of comic book nerds - that's if we can ever get a date.

And not forgetting...

And, since it's also been wonderful, you should all click here and catch up with the web-drama Becoming Human - the spin-off murder mystery featuring Being Human's teenage vampire charm-offensive Adam.

The episodes are only short and the story has enough to keep any Being Human fan hooked, as I have been. Rumour has it that the entire thing will be shown next week, in Being Human's slot on BBC Three. I urge you not to miss it... We'll find out just who murdered poor Matt and why in less than a week. It's a mystery that has gripped me as much as the parent show's storyline this year!

The cast are great. Adam, played by Submarine star Craig Roberts, is a must if the parent show needs a new vampire. The chemistry between him, George and Nina was perfect. And since the story in Being Human looks to have been ramped up somewhat in time for series four, why not bring back Werewolf Christa, played by the gorgeous Leila Mimmack and Matt, the lovable yet loveless "fat Doctor Who fan" ghost, played with more heart than a Scottish Butcher's Shop Window by Josh Brown.

I want more of this, too. What a greedy television fan I am!

Um... *Speechless*

Oh. My. God. I'm crying. I'm clapping. I want to be George. I wish things were different. I love the new villains. I want more NOW! I've just watched the series three finale of Being Human and I cannot put into words just how much it has rocked my night...

Last week we watched aghast as the police closed in on Mitchell over his part in the Box Tunnel Massacre. 

Then we saw Herrick claim Nancy as his meal and the method of bringing him back to his vicious and wonderful self. We saw poor McNair killed by Herrick, a stroke of luck on Herrick's part, but nothing less than McNair himself expected. Poor, poor Tom! It was one hell of a cliffhanger ending, too, as Mitchell got his photograph taken by the police, the threat of a worldwide revelation of all things supernatural seemingly inevitable.

This third series of Being Human has been, in my opinion, the best since the show first clambered its way onto our screens... As I've said before, I don't know how this show is still on BBC Three! Tonight's finale was, if you'll excuse the melodrama, heartbreaking, breathtaking and edge-of-the-seat stuff in equal measure.

I'm doing my best to keep this little post as spoiler-free as possible, but it's been no secret that Mitchell's life has been at risk ever since Lea - who we saw again this week, bless her - told him that there was a wolf-shaped-bullet out there with his name on it!

If you've followed the series this far it's very unlikely you missed this finale. And if you did, shame on you. I haven't been as still and silent throughout a television show in ages! This show, like Doctor Who, is the perfect proof that BBC Wales makes the best drama ever. When everything came to a head in the last twenty minutes of tonight's Being Human my heart was racing and I had tears in my eyes. 

The end isn't what I expected. The story didn't take the path I'd imagined it would take. You would be forgiven for being caught completely off-guard. It really was a double (or triple [or quadruple]) bluff. 

Those "villains" we've abhorred throughout this series wiggled their way into my sympathies tonight; I never thought I'd say that! I honestly didn't believe I could ever, ever feel pity for Herrick! And here I am, wishing he was still around. Because, if the last few minutes of tonight's episode is anything to go by, we're going to fucking need him!

I thought this may have been the last we saw of our supernatural friends, but apparently not - (question mark?). One of my favourite actors has been introduced as one of the smarmiest, most threatening - yet, at the same time,  amiable - characters the show has ever seen. Let's hope they don't wait too long to push out series four! I cannot tell you how much I've loved every single second of the third series. More please. And fast!

DESTROY ALL HUMANS!!

I know, I'm late to the party. I usually am. But digging  through an old box of stuff in my wardrobe I came upon a copy of Destroy All Humans for PlayStation 2 that I bought years ago and never opened! So, with so much time on my hands I started playing - and loved it!

It's the perfect interpretation of a 1950s "Flying Saucer Movie", told (or played) from the perspective of the Furon, a race of crass and offensive alien clones who have just two goals: 1. Collect human brain stems and recover dormant the dormant Furon DNA hidden within, and 2. DESTROY ALL HUMANS!

It's the sort of game you can play over and over again and enjoy each and every time you do. It's not a difficult game, or even a very long one - I completed it in about 4 hours or so, almost in one sitting - but there are so many side missions (and destroying the humans is so much bloody fun!) that I see myself playing this game for weeks to come. As soon as I'm able to I will be buying the other games in the Destroy All Humans! franchise and keeping the Furon dream alive. Crypto (the hero alien) has become almost a friend to me :)

Not Much Longer To Wait! Thank God!

We all waited long enough between the end of Series Five and the Doctor Who Christmas Special... It seemed like it took forever to arrive. The waits between series has become as frightening a thought as many of the monsters that appear in the show. And the wait for Series Six - knowing we're in for a treat, if the trailer is anything to go by - has seemed even longer.

But the wait is almost over! April 23rd sees the return of our favourite Time Lord in the first part of what promises to be an epic opening two-parter, simulcast on BBC America. 

It sees our heroes in America where they once again team up with the mysterious River Song to battle aliens, government agents and take a trip to the Oval Office! The footage from Utah, where the opener was filmed, looks breathtakingly good. The opening two-parter looks as though it will be a very important first bookend to the split-series - the second half of the series airing in Autumn. 

It feels as though we haven't seen this show on our screens in months and months and months, when in reality it was only Christmas! It's the wait between "halves" of this series that's going to be the killer... Just a good job the new series of Torchwood, Miracle Day, will help ease the pain by popping up on TV this summer. What a year of TV we have to come! I cannot wait!

James Nesbitt - Super-surgeon!

Firstly -and this might sounds strange - I wish Monroe was on BBC1. I'll come to why I wish that in just a second. I've never really liked medical dramas. It's always the same format. The Holby Ten Minutes. Some chap has a fall, then the story starts - it's all emotional and then something goes wrong, leading to either a sad ending or a miraculously good one. 

I wish I could say Monroe is different, but it's not. It has the basics - Patient Of The Week, personal issues, friction at work - but it has something else. A detachment, a freshness, something that makes it feel completely different to any medical drama I've ever sat through. 

It's not a masterpiece - but then it was never going to be! It's not House MD UK, either - although comparisons with inevitably be made. What we have here is s strange little show that moves too quickly for ITV. This is what I meant above; the whole thing feels far too dynamic and quirky for an ITV drama. Forgiving it some clunky dialogue and a first episode that smacks of "reworked pilot", Monroe will definitely be a quiet little mainstay in my week's television.

Episode one deals with a young woman who has a temporal lobe tumour - one wonders how many brain op stories the series can give us before it becomes routine. Next week is about a double shooting... with complications - in the brain. Although, since Nesbitt plays a neurosurgeon it's hardly an unexpected thing.  More than anything - and I'm aware that this review feels dreamy and incoherent - Monroe has something that the likes of Casualty or Holby have not always managed to show; actual heart. The acting is okay, the story was thin but interesting, there were a couple of slotted-in sub-plots and some stinking dialogue at times. But this show has heart! Jimmy Nesbitt's arrogant detachment from the work his character performs is clearly deliberate and works well. 

I could talk in contradictions all night long - it's not great but I loved it etc etc etc. But I won't. I'll sum up with a bit of comparison; you can tell it's been directed by McGuigan... There's more than a little "Sherlock" about this show - cocky characters, snappy scenes, very clever use of on-screen graphics... And, since Nesbitt is one of Britain's most watchable actors, a combination of gorgeous cinematography and Irish charm mean that you can simply overlook the bumps in the road. 

I'm completely ignorant when it comes to medical terminology and processes, but there's a sense that this show is very well researched and that this research reaches the screen. I loved this little show - but it is that; a little show. It isn't a water-cooler conversation-starter by any means, but it might just be the perfect show to sit down to with a cuppa and a smile. 

You May Not Have Heard Of... Laura Carr!

Not only is she one of the funniest, most likeable stand-ups on the circuit at the moment, but Laura Carr is also super pretty (yes, I'm shallow). She's on Twitter @lauracarrface and makes me smile at least once in a while with her tweets. Check her out below, performing at the Bracknell Drama Club's Stand-Up Evening. I think I love her.

Monroe (ITV)

James Nesbitt is back on our screens on Thursday in a brand new series for ITV, Monroe. It was commissioned as part of the drama season created to replace long-running favourite The Bill.

The series follows Gabriel Monroe, a charming and charismatic neurosurgeon. It's a medical drama, but with the emphasis on the relationships between the staff and the patients, the effect that different illnesses have on family members and the dynamic in the operating room.

Jimmy Nesbitt is good in almost everything he's in. Although I don't like medical dramas usually - which is strange since I love comedy-drama Green Wing - I think I'll be giving this one a go. I've only seen a few trailers for the series and must say that what I've seen I like. If it's any good - or if it's a load of shit - I'll throw a review up on here this weekend. If it's just "alright" I won't bother. Nobody wants to read about a bloody mediocre show, do they? No.

So, yeah. ITV1 (still can't get used to putting that "1" on the end, there) at 9pm on Thursday March 10th. Worth a look, I reckon!

You May Not Have Heard Of... Alex Horne!

Here's Alex Horne performing at The Comedy Store. A master of quiet chuckles... His World Record Attempt to become the world's oldest man is also a feat of endurance few of us would ever dare to attempt.

You May Not Have Heard Of... Josie Long!

Another stand-up great! Here's Josie Long, from her show Trying Is Good, talking about Fancy Dress... I have to say I have bit of a crush on her!

You May Not Have Heard Of... Daniel Kitson!

Here's one of the finest stand-ups ever, Daniel Kitson, at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala 2003 - hope you enjoy him! If you get a chance to see him live you should do. 

Oh My God!! - Being Human (Contains Spoilers)

Poor, poor Nina. Poor, poor George. Poor, poor Annie. Poor, poor Mitchel. Which one of these statements is the most valid? Well, based on her previous behaviour - anonymously reporting Mitchel - probably not "poor Nina". And since Mitchel is a mass murderer who really deserves to be punished, probably not poor him! As for George, he just walked away from his pregnant girlfriend, leaving her to the mercy of the newly reinvigorated Herrick, so probably not poor him either - although he didn't know what would happen.

The last fifteen minutes of Sunday's penultimate episode of Being Human was utterly edge-of-the-seat stuff. I was breathless. I almost cried when Nina was stabbed by Herrick. I've turned against Mitchel though agree with George that a reveal of the Supernatural World would be an awful thing...

It seems the only people we should genuinely feel sorry for in all of this is Annie and Nancy - though I fear Herrick may have recruited himself another apprentice there. Also, we can feel sorry for McNair and Thomas - although McNair was about to off Mitchel, too, so there really is a morally blurred line through this series.

Bottom line is, the third series of Being Human has been utterly outstanding television. Why this is still on BBC Three is a mystery. The drama has been ramped up to heartbreaking levels. I literally cannot see where this will all end. There's one episode left and I don't think it'll end well for anyone! So much so, in fact, that I've been thinking about this. The following is JUST a personal prediction. I don't know anything at all for sure, but this is what I believe will happen...

George arrives at the police station to find everyone dead and Mitchel about to leave. They run home. They find the rest of the dead officers and Nina. She's alive so they rush her to hospital. Mitchel wants to know Herrick's secret but Herrick wants more than ever before to take control. I believe the "Wolf Shaped Bullet" that will finally end Mitchel's reign will be none other than poor George.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to find out what's to come. Not long to go now. But the sad thing is, this could very well be the last we see of these particular characters. A horrible thought that's disappointment is only offset by the knowledge that Matt, Adam and Christa from Becoming Human are more than worthy contenders for places in the parent show, should it continue.

24 Hour Panel People - Comic Relief 2011

Between midday yesterday and midday today comedian David Walliams has undergone yet another endurance challenge for Comic Relief. He's already swum the Channel and cycled the length and breadth of the country, all for charity, and in the aforementioned 24 hour period he sat on more panel shows than anyone thought possible. 

24 Hour Panel People for Comic Relief brought together some of the best British comedy performers and actors to appear on some of the nation's favourite panel shows - even resurrecting some old favourites such as Give Us A Clue, Blankety Blank and Call My Bluff - alongside Mr Walliams. It was a hard task to watch this - it was streamed live online for the whole 24 hours, allowing audiences a glimpse of what the shows are like before they're chopped up and re-edited. I managed to watch for about 9 hours. A friend of mine watched the whole bloody thing... I am proud of her! But the 9 or so hours I saw were enough for me to feel safe in the knowledge that this country can still boast that it has the best comedians in the world!

So here are a few you should look up:

Daniel Kitson

Josie Long

Laura Carr

Alex Horne

Kevin Eldon

Tim Key

'We Are Klang'

There are so many more, but these are the ones that people tend to not know about...

One final request; since 24 Hour Panel People was for Comic Relief and was great, I urge you to donate to the charity by visiting https://www.rednoseday.com/donate. Also, check out the rest of that site for more info on what is happening on TV and in your area for Comic Relief on March 18th.

Stewart Lee - St David's Hall, Cardiff. March 4th 2011

You know before I begin that this little review will be biased and enthusiastic. You know full well that Stewart Lee is one of my "heroes". You also know, if you know who Stew is and what he does, that he's not everybody's cup of tea...

I went to see his latest show, Vegetable Stew, with two friends; one older than me and one younger. Neither really enjoyed the show very much, as far as I can tell. I, however, believed it to be hilarious. The show is a "work in progress" for a show which, due to the postponement of the show show in October, has already been filmed for BBC2. 

Tackling charity and government in his trademark repetitive, plodding, pause-filled, rhythmic style Stew once again takes pot shots at some of the most unusual victims. His cynical views on Russell Howard's agenda behind his charity work take the audience on a giggle-some guilt-ride which much of the room, including me, found side-splitting. A Stewart Lee audience is a wonderfully interesting thing - it has pockets of different types of people. Stew is the embodiment of the saying "you can't please all of the people all of the time". But Stew doesn't want to! He wants to leave people behind and have them feel as though they need to catch up.

As with most of Stew's shows he loses the audience with some very dangerous material about the IRA, a wonderful story about his days at Oxford where he became David Cameron's friend "for a few weeks" and crisps. Lots of crisps. It's a method that Stew - and only Stew - can really pull off. Losing and audience and winning them back is what makes Stewart Lee such a unique performer. There is nobody quite like him out there, even now, even after his twenty-odd years in the business. I laughed all night - I smiled inwardly at just how much respect I have for this man. He really is an inspiration. He's my Ted Chippington. 

But he's not everyone's idea of what a comedian should be. Michael McIntyre he is not. He is, you could say, the antidote to the comedy we have thrust upon us now. Stewart Lee's material is comedy as cooked by Heston Blumenthal - he's an artist. He deconstructs each and every nuance of his own routine, informing the audience in advance that he has few jokes and much of his material simply doesn't work! But it does. So well. 

The show was incredible. And, as usual, Stew hung about after the show to meet the crowd and sign books and DVDs. They say you should never meet your heroes. Well, I'm so happy that I did!