WITH STEWART LEE
THE
&
QA
BACK PICTURE: STEVE ULLATHORNE
Comedy provocateur Stewart Lee is preparing not one but two Fringe shows this August. He takes time out from all that to consider our intense Q&A which leaves him pondering about his days as an Army Cadet and wondering about otters, parrots and Snoop Dogg
Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life? Who do you think the casting people would choose? I would like to be played by a cute puppet operated by Nina Conti when I was a child; by Sydney Chandler ( Chrissie Hynde from P istol ) when I am in my 20s; Tanita Tikaram in my 30s ; and then Hattie Jacque s when I am old, but she is dead. I expect the casting people would want Romesh Ranganathan, as he seems to be the main person in most things these days. What’s the punchline to your favourite joke? Y ou can keep your fucking plough! If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be? An otter, no q uestion about it ( preferably European not Asian Short Claw) . I would live at
92 THE LIST July–August 2022
Glenelg on the west coast, where R ing O f Brig h t W ater is set, and from where my Scottish ancestors left for India in the 1 8 00s. I love otters and go into a trance of joy when watching them. I love the way they make all the things they have to do look such fun, and how they play with little stones and swoop through the water. I like to see a big pile of them asleep on each other. They are brilliant. I wrote all the C om ed y V eh ic l e series in the café at London Z oo and I would look at the otters every day. Pricks used to feed them crisps and I would tell them off. I wish I could see otters in the wild. I used to love visiting all the Otter Trust sites, especially in Bungay, but they have mainly closed now as otter numbers in our rivers have recovered, thankfully. It remains to see how Brexit deregulations on pollution will affect this. I expect they will be OK in Scotland.
