He can't get hired anymore after posting a perfectly reasonable paragraph on FB about immigration. Genuinely not offensive at all but got the ultra left into a right tizzy. Shame, he's very funny.
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Best Comedy Rant
- Thread starter LlcoolJ
- Start date
He can't get hired anymore after posting a perfectly reasonable paragraph on FB about immigration. Genuinely not offensive at all but got the ultra left into a right tizzy. Shame, he's very funny.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,369
Andrew Lawrence ranting about the BBC and left wing comedians a couple of years after Radio 4 decided not to make a fourth series of his radio show. The motivations he ascribes to others make his own motives for his outburst fairly transparent. There was a documentary series on TV in the nineties that looked at the lives of performers who used to be famous. It featured the likes of Bobby Davro, Keith Harris and Bernie Clifton and there was quite a lot of bitter rankling about why they weren't wanted by the telly anymore. They seemed to think that they had an automatic right to be famous and successful for the rest of their lives. It was all very Partridge and was the first thing that sprang to my mind when Lawrence wrote his post. He could have just written 'But why don't they want MEEE?'
Lawrence makes the usual misinterpretation of Stewart Lee's telling everyone how clever he is. It's a character you fool. The real life Stewart Lee posted this measured response when the BBC didn't want a fifth version of his series:
http://www.stewartlee.co.uk/2016/05/from-the-desk-of-stewart-lee-may-2016/
I would guess that Lawrence, educated at the far from elitist St Andrews University: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alumni_of_the_University_of_St_Andrews, has a good idea of the concept of dramatic irony, so would have to ask myself why he pretends not to recognise it in Lee's act. It surely couldn't be that he is now in the business of mirroring the prejudices of one section of society for money, could it? I thought it was only the Oxbridge educated liberal metropolitan elite that did that.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
Or maybe he knows Stewart Lee better than you or I do and possibly that prissy, self-indulgent and far from measured article that Stewart Lee wrote questioning Lawrence's mental state shows that where Lee is concerned, reality and his on-stage persona are often blurred.
- Thread starter
- #24
Nah, I've watched a bit more. Lawrence is just a bitter little prick by the looks of things. Or that's his act......Either way, I'm out.
Out of interest Buzzer, what did you make of his Dapper Laughs/rape culture gag? I'm far from "PC" and have been accused of sexism on here on more than one occasion just for how I talk, but I thought it was ****ing awful.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
From the article in question:
"The truth is that, in our comedy community, everyone I met, including all the black and Asian comics I worked with last week, expressed genuine and sympathetic concern for their colleague Andrew Lawrence’s mental wellbeing."
If the comedy community includes everyone then why make a specific point about mentioning comedians of an ethnic background? The answer: it's a dog whistle implication that he thinks Lawrence is a racist but he doesn't have the minerals to state it explicitly. Instead he chooses another ad hominem, that because Lawrence is at odds with the majority of the comedy circuit in not wanting to do UKIP jokes because they are easy, lazy and virtue-signalling that he must be suffering a mental illness.
No wonder Lawrence was angry.
Edit - I'm presuming that Lee and Lawrence know each other well enough for Lee to have made this cod psychologist diagnosis otherwise it paints Lee in an even worse light.
"The truth is that, in our comedy community, everyone I met, including all the black and Asian comics I worked with last week, expressed genuine and sympathetic concern for their colleague Andrew Lawrence’s mental wellbeing."
If the comedy community includes everyone then why make a specific point about mentioning comedians of an ethnic background? The answer: it's a dog whistle implication that he thinks Lawrence is a racist but he doesn't have the minerals to state it explicitly. Instead he chooses another ad hominem, that because Lawrence is at odds with the majority of the comedy circuit in not wanting to do UKIP jokes because they are easy, lazy and virtue-signalling that he must be suffering a mental illness.
No wonder Lawrence was angry.
Edit - I'm presuming that Lee and Lawrence know each other well enough for Lee to have made this cod psychologist diagnosis otherwise it paints Lee in an even worse light.
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Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,369
The article wasn't prissy, it was sarcastic and merely referenced Lawrence in passing whilst having a go at Farage: https://www.theguardian.com/culture...l-comedy-cabal-will-crush-the-ukips-into-dust
Lawrence used it to add to his 'victim' persona and sold/told his newly found audience just what they wanted to hear.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
It may have only mentioned Lawrence in passing but as I've already posted, where he mentioned Lawrence it was pretty nasty dog-whistle stuff. He's either a racist, mentally ill or both. There's no need to quote the article, I've already read it. If you don't like the word prissy then you could have had unprofessional or snide...take your pick.
You accuse him of affecting a victim persona to play on a new-found audience. I could equally counter that he came back fighting and that a lot of people like to bathe in the reflected glory of Lee's intellect and get the hump when their sacred cow is attacked.
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Whitechapel
Famous Last Words
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,369
Because Lawrence's Facebook post had specifically decided to mention 'ethnic comedians' as one of the targets of his ire.
https://www.facebook.com/andrewlawrencecomedy/posts/10154749255720253
Let's not pretend that it was his critics that raised the subject.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,369
The BBC gave him another series on Radio 4 a year after the post, but let's not let truth get in the way of the myth.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
The exact quote: "...aging, balding, fat men, ethnic comedians and women-posing-as-comedians..."
A couple of things from this, Lee knows exactly what he's doing by homing in on the 'ethnic' bit. Why not mention that he's spoken to female comedians or the fat balding comedians that he knows also? We both know the answer why.
Secondly, how is it you are happy to dismiss Lee's criticism of Lawrence as merely 'in passing' yet you're quite happy to see Stewart Lee insinuate some serious accusations at Andrew Lawrence for what is, frankly, an even more fleeting and shorter reference in an otherwise directed rant?
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
I don't know about the BBC but I do know that he has been "uninvited" from at least one comedy festival because of his perceived views.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,369
Not up to your usual posting standard Buzzer. You selected parts of the article to quote out of context and painted it as something it wasn't. Your counter is fairly weak, based, as it is, on exactly the tactics of dog whistle ad hominem that you have been criticising. Do you think that a personal dislike of Stewart Lee's popularity and critical acclaim has coloured your interpretation of a fairly run of the mill Guardian comment piece?
Never heard of or seen that guy before, but he sums up exactly what I think about those two twats. Every comedian you see on telly these days is exactly the same, doing the same boring lefty nonsense. Now, I'm not right wing or anything like that, but jesus occasionally you wanna hear someone with a different view. Possibly I'm just a contrarian, but so what.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
Hang on. You just said that Lawrence was only mentioned in passing and this is the part that we are discussing: namely Lee's attack on Lawrence. And I've quoted it verbatim there's nothing that's been taken out of context by me. Don't try to move the goalposts now. A man's mental state was questioned because he ranted about BBC quotas and more specifically about conveyor-belt jokes about easy targets. I don't know if that passes as run of the mill Guardian but it is definitely an ad hominem attack and I think Lawrence is justified in responding.
Regards my beef with Stewart Lee, he does seem to bring out a certain type of person that love to regurgitate his monologues in the belief that by repeating them it endows them with his wit and intelligence. it's a 21st century version of a group of pub bores reciting Monty Python sketches. Fast Show Colin Hunts.
So how you getting on with Mrs Browns Boys Buzzer.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
We would definitely be moving out of the realms of comedy and into tragedy.
A mate of mine from work absolutely loves it. Mind you he recently confessed to me his perfect day was sitting at home in just his underpants watching countless re-runs of On the Buses whilst drinking Newcastle Brown.
He is a good carpenter though.