Brighton Festival Fringe – Stewart Lee / Nick Pynn

Stewart Lee now has a second series on BBC2 and plays venues including Brighton Dome Concert Hall. So it was a real treat for the 30 people packed into Bom-Bane’s Café to see him in such an intimate atmosphere. First, Nick Pynn used looping effects and home-made acoustic instruments to create trippy orchestral folk music. Then Mr Lee took the mic, launching into new material about Osama Bin Laden, a long repetitive ramble on why the IRA are better than Al Qaeda (who are “rude”) and finally, a song about Russell Brand’s wedding. Intellectual, repetitive, ironic, self-referential, and very, very funny.

Bom-Bane’s Café, 11 May
Rating: ★★★★★
Jim Holland