I wonder if @Slack_TV will be risking his life and tuning in to the broadcast of Stewart Lee's show Tornado. When Lee's show Snowflake was broadcast on BBC Two it nearly killed @slack_TV according to his Twitter posts. He wrote: "As my regular followers know I have a machine to help me breath when my lungs give up on me, Stewart Lee literally nearly killed me with laughter last night, thank you mate, better luck next time #bbc2"
Others were not quite so impressed by Lee's alternative state of the nation address. His brutal, silent, face-pulling take down of Ricky Gervais and the "you can't say anything these days" brigade was a particular room divider.
@vickyinatutu tweeted: "If Stewart Lee grunting into a microphone for 9 minutes to make some sort of point about Ricky Gervais not being funny, isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is #Snowflake"
Bitchard tweeted: "Thankyou Stewart Lee's 'Snowflake' for the best ever impersonation of Ricky Gervais the world will ever see and don't worry Gervais fans, he won't get upset by my tweet. He blocked me."
While Sean Begley was particularly keen on the music with Nick Pynn at the end: "Saw 'Snowflake' by #StewartLee in Edinburgh a few weeks back. It was phenomenal, of course, but the brilliant @nickpynn added something special to the final segment on @BBC"
So it'll be interesting to see what viewers make of the second show Tornado, which Lee performed back-to-back with Snowflake before, during and after the pandemic. I expect it will have changed a bit since I first saw it way back in 2019 when he had a pop at Phoebe Waller-Bridge among others and I reviewed it here.
If you like what you see there's a brand new Stewart Lee show in the pipeline which he is suggesting is a more stripped down one-man-and-his-mic show. It is called Basic Lee. Details of long London run and tour here.
By the way, Tornado is directed by Al Campbell, who – trivia fans – played spoof pundit Barry Shitpeas in Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe shows and has also worked on Inside No 9.
Stewart Lee: Tornado, Sunday, September 11, 10.25pm, BBC Two – Update – now rescheduled for Thursday, September 29, 11.15pm, BBC Two.
Stewart Lee Picture: BBC/Anthony Robling