Hailed by many as the best comedian of his generation, Stewart Lee hit the headlines before the Fringe, when an email he’d sent to the Fosters Comedy Awards complaining about their search for a Comedy God from the past 30 years of its existence became public.
Up against more currently popular names, Lee suggested that 1984 nominees Frank Chickens didn’t stand a chance - but in the end the Japanese art collective actually won the award (which was announced this week in low-key fashion) when an online campaign erupted to secure their victory.
For his unintentional headline-grabbing act Lee won the Cunning Stunt gong at the weekend’s Malcolm Hardee Awards, a distinctly alternative event cheekily celebrating the best of the Fringe.
He spoke to STV afterwards, and told Kate Copstick of his success: “Well, I’m really confused by it, to be honest, because I won it for an email I sent in which I complained about the Fosters Comedy God of All Time Award and pointed out that it didn’t nearly hold water, because there wasn’t any evidence of most of the acts in the list that anyone could compare and contrast for.
“The problem with these things is they’re not really worth anything. I thought that I really like the Fringe, and I really like comedy, and I was annoyed about it being misrepresented deliberately and cynically I think for commercial gain.
“I was also drunk when I received the email for the thing, I’d been out drinking Fosters. I’d had three pints; if I’d had two I wouldn’t have had the guts to send the email, if I’d had four I would have been not coherent enough to write it.
“I think in the email I just said ‘What about, for example, Frank Chickens - they were a good act 25 years ago, there’s no evidence for them now, they might be the best act of 30 years?’”
Lee continued: “People say ‘this award isn’t for me’, but this award isn’t for me. I sent an email when I was drunk, and then Robin Ince and Richard Herring, and all sorts of people - people in Japan circulated it, all around Twitter, I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that sort of went off.
“It’s the sort of thing that corporate sponsors try and fabricate, it’s called viral marketing, but this happened by the sheer will of the people thinking ‘Ah yeah, you know, let’s just wreck that.’”
He added: “It’s funny that it worked like a dream, by accident, and it achieved the levels of publicity that the Fosters Comedy Awards would try to get, but they can’t get it because ultimately they have nothing to offer, and everything they have to say is false.”
Not that everything he had to say about Fosters was negative, though.
Lee reasoned: “The great thing about Fosters as a drink is it gave me - having had three pints of Fosters - it gave me the courage to stand up to the Fosters corporation’s dishonest appropriation of comedy, and I think that whenever I need that extra push in future, it is Fosters that I will reach for.”
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