Stewart Lee’s style of comedy has a reputation for being self-indulgent but it is actually incredibly self-referential and there is a distinction between these two definitions.

Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle aired two series on the BBC and three running jokes from that series are occurring in this simple but effective excerpt from his 2012 touring show Carpet Remnant World.

Several different times during the Comedy Vehicle series Stewart Lee comically muses on his inability to perform observational comedy which is often presented with the phrase ‘How about that…that they have now’; his comparatively low ticket prices compared to the arena comedy tours that he is unable to sell out, often specifically Live at the Apollo, and the public’s miss-understanding of political correctness.

In the excerpt Stewart Lee’s running around the stage and gazing into the audience is a mock parody of the energy and enthusiasm displayed by comedians entrances at arena shows.  The prolonged pausing and sighing throughout is referential of the drawn out routines he has developed a reputation for and His final line ‘Have you seen these Muslims they have now?…that’s the end of that bit.’ is a nod to his Comedy Vehicle episode ‘Political Correctness’ so there are several signifiers of, and references to, previous jokes occurring in this short, simple, moment.

The reason these running jokes work is because Stewart Lee’s style and reputation has been established for so long and he has made several jokes about having a niche audience he is trying to shake off or widen. Regrettably, the ‘bit’ in the bellow video featured in neither the preview of Carpet Remnant World, nor one of the toured show’s I attended but his show was, and his performances often are, full of self referencing one-liners and drawn out monologues that manifested themselves in the style of  ‘an aggressive lecture.’