You must be joking?

By Paul Flower on Apr 9, 09 02:14 PM

In which I take a convoluted route to find truth.

A clichÃÂ© is a maxim worn thin by overuse and subsequent abuse. So that if I claim it's a small world this is not to say that it really is small but that the circles in which we all work and socialize are concentric, or limited in span. In addition to this whenever we meet someone new we seek to find common ground be it by virtue of friends, colleagues, interests, background, sport or whatever - consequently our 'worlds' are generally pretty small.

I note this in an over-elaborate way for no other reason than my admiration for Stewart Lee and his incisive, rapier-wit. Those who have yet to catch his 'comedy vehicle' could do a lot worse than go via the iplayer for last week's and then tune in every Monday at 10 on BBC2, albeit that there are only a few episodes left.

The programme takes a different subject each week, which Stewart effectively cuts to shreds. The first couple of episodes made me laugh longer and harder than the entire output of TV for the previous six months. Not that I'm about to turn into a TV critic, there are people better at it than me - people who watch far more TV.

The narrow confines of our worlds - colleagues, associates, etc - occurred to me during the 2nd episode which concerned the world of television. Within the first few minutes Lee had described the experience of watching TV presenter Adrian Chiles as "like being stuck in the buffet car of a slow-moving train with a Toby jug that has miraculously discovered the power of speech". He then paused and added: "A talking Toby jug full of steaming hot piss".

Whilst I may have missed something from that, and quoting comedy is never the same as being there, my inevitable hysterics gave way to the thought that one day Stewart Lee will inevitably bump into Adrian Chiles. They both work for the BBC; they may even record shows in the same buildings. They're both from our area of the country; they may even have friends in common - Frank Skinner for one.

Naturally comedians have to be fearless; none of the comedy vehicle programmes could've been made if Stewart Lee was a shrinking violet afraid of offending people. That inevitable meeting won't be easy though, will it?

No doubt I've been over-thinking this but I began to think about the effect that it would have on Chiles himself. Was he watching and, if not, who would dare to break the news to him? Would one of his TV colleagues ask him about it the following day? If so how would they describe the 'joke'?

Understandably if you become a celebrity you cannot expect everyone to like you but, in my experience, many celebs are fairly fragile - they do not like being criticised. None of us do, but I have tended to notice that the larger the ego, the more brittle it is. More than once have I fallen foul of underestimating the fragility of some 'star' or other, I've even lost work through not protecting them from such critique.

An example I always quote in such instances concerns an actor/singer from the North East. He seemed to have fairly humble origins and his back-story suggested a degree of luck in reaching his stage of stardom. If you knew anything of his work you'd imagine him to be a fairly down-to-earth jovial type. The truth was dramatically quite the opposite - I'm not sure I've worked with anyone with such a degree of paranoia about his public persona. Every facet of his 'image' was very strictly controlled and he was easily the most humourless 'famous' person I've encountered. Painfully so.

The truth is frequently different from how we perceive it to be, different entirely from what we might see on TV. Celebrities may be indulging in a great deal more interaction than ever before but do not doubt that they guard their image very carefully and don't always imagine that they can take a joke. They can't.

Stewart Lee can certainly tell them though - and in the absence of the 'offending' clip, here's another.