Stewart Lee : Snowflake, New Town Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

 This show should have been at the Fringe in 2020.  But we all know what happened to that.  So it's now three years old, has been performed many times, and been updated along the way.  There's a neon sign with the word itself, a backdrop of stylised snowflakes, and a guitar.  And the man himself.

The Snowflake in question is Lee, and other comedians of like minded liberalism, now being accused of the made-up 'crimes' of 'political correctness' and 'wokeism'  (or trying to be considerate and kind towards others, as normal people would say).  So he takes effective aim at Tony Parsons, one time decent human being, now right wing shock jock, and turns his accusations inside out.  And there's a physical comedy routine showing why it's literally impossible for the like of Ricky Gervais to 'say the unsayable'.  The guitar comes out at the end, with Lee proving surprisingly adept on the strings, for a short song summing up the inherently daftness of the 'anti-woke' brigade.

As ever Lee is always ready to abuse his audience, point out our failings for not getting the joke, and yet critiquing his own set, and breaking down the elements of the comedy interaction.  But the abuse seemed genuine enough, and well deserved, for members of the audience who got their phones out or had omitted to put them on silent.  Lee even got down of the stage at one point, to berate the hapless individual who had a phone out, even after hearing the comments made about two earlier in the show.  The comedian complained that these interruptions had ruined the build up to the next section, which in turn spoiled the flow of the entire show.  Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?  He's Stewart Lee.  But this did feel like he was being sincere, for the flow didn't feel quite right after that, and the show was, by his usual high standards, still funny but a bit flat.  That could have been down to the interruptions on the day, and maybe there's an element of tiredness to such well worn in material.  

I've seen Lee enough times to give him the benefit of the doubt and still recommend this show.  But switch your bloody phone off!

Stewart Lee's Snowflake is on the in Stand's New Town Theatre at 13.50 until the twenty eighth (not fifteenth and sixteenth).  But many of those dates are already sold out.