No Comfort Zone: Stewart Lee

It must be hard to be Stewart Lee.

And not because of the 150 nights he spent on the road last year or the fact that he's been doing comedy for 20 years (both of which he mentioned during the gig).

But because he's so supremely self-aware.

All the time you're watching him perform, you get the sense that he's not only watching himself with a critical eye, he's watching-you-watching-him and projecting a critical response from you too. That much apparently self-imposed criticism would be exhausting for any comedian.

But actually a lot of his comedy comes from this critical self-awareness. In fact, the last time I saw him it was even in the title of the show ("The 41st Best Stand Up Ever") which was a hard title to follow since it encouraged you to judge him against it. Even if you felt, as his ironic approach suggested, that he'd been robbed, he'd still sewn a seed of doubt in your mind.

His place in the comedy spectrum concerned him this time round too - only this time it was focused on the type of audience he attracts. The tone and title of the "41st Best" show may have suggested that the only way was down but actually his return to Norwich saw him move from the Playhouse to the much larger Theatre Royal.

You'd think he'd be happy about that but actually he just seemed uncomfortable in a different way.

This prompted him to do something I've never seen a comedian do before - he spent quite a significant part of the set working hard to whittle the audience down to a more manageable size. He dismissed a large part of the circle as "people's friends" rather than comedy fans and focused his attention on the stalls. His distinctions between those who had just 'come along' and real comedy goers were actually pretty funny - if you were sitting in the stalls.

He also gave us a good idea of his ideal audience and I discovered (somewhat to my surprise) that I didn't really fit the description. I was surprised because I'd really enjoyed the routines and I respected the sophistication of his subjects and style.

Last time it felt like the audience was too small for Stewart Lee, this time it felt like it was too large. If he does have a comfort zone when it comes to his audience, I was unfortunately left feeling like I wasn't in it.

Time and the Ten O'Clock Train

By its very existence, the ten o'clock train to London has provided a pretty technical end to several comedy gigs I've seen in Norwich.

Sometimes it's flagged from the start, sometimes a glance at the watch in the second half leads the comedian to confess that they're going to have to finish in time to catch the ten o'clock train.

I assume it's because the ten o'clock train is the last one which gets into London that night and I happen to have seen several comedy Cinderellas who want to make it back before midnight.

(And I'd say this was a Norwich phenomenon but I suspect it happens anywhere within a roughly two hour "I-can-still-get-home-tonight" radius of London.)

So what, you might say?

Surely it's fair enough that a comedian - who presumably spends many nights on tour - takes every opportunity they can to get home, sleep in their own bed and spend time with their families?

And yes, that is fair enough.

But is it fair that the comedy gig I'm watching in Norwich is tainted by the slightly awkward sense that the comedian literally needs to get off so they can go somewhere else? At least Mark Watson, who has announced he's leaving on the ten o'clock train both times I've seen him in Norwich, tries to use the possibility of missing the train as a way of building the tension at the end of his set - but usually mentioning the train is about managing expectations and explaining the comedian's awkward clockwatching.

All I'm saying is it's just not that relaxing to watch someone glance at their watch while you're laughing at their jokes.

Of course, clockwatching isn't confined to comedians who want to get home that night. A lot of comedians, especially support acts, seem to struggle with how to keep track of time on stage without looking like they don't want to be there. Pulling a mobile out of your back pocket to check the time is right up there with pulling out a CD and telling us it's on sale in the foyer when it comes to awkward moments on stage.

But what can a comedian do?

Simple stuff like writing and rehearsing the set so it fits into the time slot and builds to a satisfying climax rather than a dash for a taxi. Or sorting out a signal with the technical crew which means 'ten minutes to go'. Or at least wearing a watch rather than pulling out a mobile or awkwardly asking the audience to keep track of time for you (this is the worst and is usually accompanied by a chirpy "How are we doing?").

They say comedy is all about timing - but if you really want the set to flow I think it's about elegantly keeping track of time too.