Stewart Lee vs The Man-wulf
Oxford Playhouse

TONIGHT’s performance begins typically lowkey, as Lee strides onto the stage with the house lights still on and starts addressing the crowd before half of them have even noticed he’s there. This is by means of introducing his own show, which he explains will be in three parts: liberal humour delivered in a liberal manner; reactionary humour delivered in a reactionary manner; and finally liberal humour delivered in a reactionary manner. 

This sets us up for a joke that — as he himself points out — manages to be both liberal and reactionary at the same time (“Jimmy Carr has actually made more money off stereotyping gypsies than any gypsy ever has by failing to tarmac a drive”). 

I wonder if this will be the modus operandi of the night, with Lee attempting to have his cake and it, dressing up his own attempts at punching-down alt-right-friendly comedy as an ironic critique of that very thing. Thankfully my fears — that one, nasty, joke aside — seem to have been misplaced. 

The plot “vehicle” for the show is Lee being bitten by a reactionary right-leaning libertarian comedic werewolf at the end of the first half, setting him up to return as a fully-fledged American Man-Wulf for Act Two; before finally waking up as an English liberal in the body of a wolf for the climax. 

Lee explains how a show that was intended to be a searing indictment of the rightward drift of both politics and comedy began to seem ever more futile as public life increasingly satirises itself, rendering comedy somewhat redundant. “Making jokes about the dull competence of the Labour government,” he explains, “is like trying to sneer at moss.” 

For good measure, he also appears to be goading his rival comedians into suing him for slander — perhaps a canny career move in a world where getting cancelled increasingly seems like the best thing that can happen to one’s earning potential. Being very eloquently threatened by Russell Brand, he said, was like being attacked by a “thesaurus with its pages stuck together with cum and blood.” Referencing the fact that, unlike Brand, David Bowie’s sexual liaisons with underage girls did not appear to have dented his status as a much-loved British icon, he noted that “the culture decides which talents it can afford to lose.” 

The theme of the show is the increasing dominance of the “cruel bully” figure in public life and the entertainment industry. Comparing the celebrities lining up for and against Trump and his ilk, Lee bemoans the fact that “they’ve got all these domineering alpha male types like Hulk Hogan, and Elon Musk — and who have we got? Michael Rosen and Carol Vorderman. It’s hardly a fair fight.”  

The apex of the show — as the cruel bully Man-Wulf converts to liberalism — reruns the form of his earlier pastiche of American right-wing comedy with new middle class liberal content. It works. Fans will not be disappointed. 

On tour until November 2025. For dates, venues and tickets see: stewartlee.co.uk