This blogger loves a bit of stand-up comedy, dear blog reader. Always has done, right back to seeing Billy Connolly and Jasper Carrot live as a youngling back in the 1970s. Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey, Phill Jupitas, Jack Dee, in particular Keith Telly Topping's comedy hero the American comic Steven Wright. Brilliant stuff. Inventive, witty, informed. And, then there's Iain Lee.This, here, is Iain Lee, dear blog reader. You might recognise him from a couple of quiz shows that he hosted for the Beeb (The Eleven O'Clock Show was probably the best known) or as a presenter on children's TV, or from his slots on commercial radio or, more likely, as one of those utterly interminable 'z-list celebrity talking-heads' who turn up on those Channel Four The Best Something Or Other In The World. Ever-type conceits which appear with monotonous regularity in the TV schedules.
You know, it's him, Stuart Maconie, Marcus Brigstocke, Vernon Kaye, Jamie Theakston and all of that crowd. Maconie, at least, has the fact that he's decent writer to fall back on - and Brigstocke, to be fair, is quite a funny chap - but who, exactly are these other people? I mean, what do they do to justify their worthless existence and breathe the same air that we 'non-celebrity people' do? They appear to be famous entirely for being famous. Some day, presumably, Channel Four will put together a Best Of The Best Something Or Other In The Word. Ever compilation which will feature nothing but three hours of these z-list non-entities talking about any and every subject that's given to them without being, in any way, 'informed' or actually knowing what the fek they're talking about.
This skinny wretch, in particular, pisses Keith Telly Topping off no end with his cynical looning (this blogger is told that he's a big Lost and The Monkees fan but I don't care, not even those features redeem him in Keith Telly Topping's eyes). Now, again, this blogger likes a bit of cynicism in comedy as much as the next man. But, it has to be delivered with a modicum of charm otherwise it falls as flat as a pancake. Look at, for instance, Stephen Fry at his most caustic, or Jack Dee, or Rich Hall - all of their comedy is, largely, based on being pissed-off fortysomething blokes, but they're also likeable with it.
Lee, I'm afraid, just comes over as a smug, vastly unlikeable tosser whom this blogger would really rather like to see tied to a chair and then hit, in the face - hard - with a metal-framed photo-album containing images of some genuinely funny people. You know the kind of thing ... 'This is Peter Cook. He was funny, you're not,' WHACK. 'These are Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimore. They're funny, you're not,' WHACK. 'This is Tommy Cooper. He was really very funny indeed. You're not,' WHACK. 'This is Bill Hicks. He had more genuine humour in his little finger than you have in your entire body,' WHACK. Et cetera.
I dunno, maybe it's just yer actual Keith Telly Topping channelling his dad (it's happening a lot, recently - especially, and worryingly, when it comes to music) and this blogger is being desperately unkind to the poor bloke who is lovely, re-homes stray kittens and is good to his mother. But, it's got to be said it's a very hard thing for someone on television to produce this kind of reaction in me - it being, after all, my job to watch drivel on a daily basis and pass comment upon it. This blogger can even put up with Big Brother so long as the wind's in a prevailing direction.
Anyway, more pet peeves may occur to me in the future if this curiously Morrisseyesque mood continues but in the mean time if you've got anyone that you'd like to see hit in the mush with a metal-framed photo-album for being a smug, ferret-faced, unamusing lanky ladgeful glake, just let yer actual Keith Telly Topping know and he'll see what he can do.
