Stewart Lee is to become the first comedian to do a book launch on a barge. Lee will read from his new book MARCH OF THE LEMMINGS, from the deck of WORD ON THE WATER, the floating bookshop moored on the Regent's Canal in Granary Square, near London's King's Cross, on Sunday 15th September at 2pm.
"As there is no room for listeners on the boat, I will address them as they stand on the shore," says Lee, "I will be like Christ talking from a fishing boat, or a Viking leader making laws from the island of the Icelandic Tingwall parliament."
The reading will be followed by a raucous free jazz set from the trio of ALAN WILKINSON, STEVE NOBLE and JOHN EDWARDS, perched dangerously on the barge's roof. "The badly thought out event is sure to cause no end of problems, and may set back the cause of the written word, and all jazz, for decades", confessed Lee.
"Some of the book, which deals almost exclusively with Brexit and was completed in March, now feels irrelevant", says Lee, "but much of it is so prophetic it is as if it was written by an omnipotent God, bending reality to his will, which frightens me to be honest"
Attendees may want to bring rainwear, and flasks, or money to buy their own food and drink from one of Granary Square's many artisanal delicacy outlets. If anyone has any quality books they want to donate to WORD ON THE WATER, they would be gladly received.
"You need to bear in mind that the water is dark, lonely and dangerous," warned Lee. "In fact Paddy, who co-runs the shop, recently fell in the canal and broke his leg."
