Lee and Herring back together for six hours only - Stewart arrived at my house at just after 10am, laden down with massive coffees for me, Chris Evans (not that one) and Gerald on sound and we drank them waiting for my spare bedroom to be transformed into a studio.
If I had written Warming Up through the 1990s then Stewart would have featured on a pretty much daily basis, as that decade was almost entirely taken up with us sitting in a room or an office or a tour van or a dressing room trying to come up with comedy ideas and (nearly always) resisting the urge to punch each other in the face.
But since TMWRNJ
got cancelled in 1999 we have mainly only met up in social situations. From the emails and Twitter comments I occasionally get it seems that many people think we had a massive bust up and aren't talking to each other any more, but this just shows that stories begin from what people imagine or secretly want to happen, because we are much better friends now than we were then, largely due to not having to sit in a room with each other for 14 hours a day, six to seven days a week. The end of Lee and Herring came about because Jane Root did not want to recommission our series and we had to find other ways to make a living. I don't think we would have kept going for all that much longer in any case, though I know of at least one now massive double act who were on the point of parting ways when a TV series they did suddenly took off. So perhaps if we'd done another series and it had captured the public imagination, Stew and me might still be working together, or, more likely, one of us would have snapped and coved in the other's skull. I think it was for the best that we went our separate ways and indeed that we had the ropes cut on the rapid ascent and had to start again. We've both produced much more interesting work as a result and learned how to become proper comedians. Setbacks can actual be a help in moving forwards. I'd love to see the alternate universe where Lee and Herring became successful, but only from a sense of morbid fascination. I don't think it would have been good news for either of us.
I think we both have fond memories of Fist of Fun (the first series of which we'd be doing a commentary and interview for today), even if at the time it was a fraught and high-pressured time, which meant we probably didn't enjoy it as much as our memories might allow. I hadn't watched the whole thing through since the mid-90s. My memories plus the clips I have seen on Youtube made me think it was something of an undiscovered gem, that got little attention from critics or the powers-that-be at the time and is a bit unjustly excluded from the history of TV comedy (you will never see a Lee and Herring sketch on TV's funniest moments). I think we both were fearful that we'd watch it and realise that we had done something as young men that surpassed what we were doing now, but we needn't have worried. We are both much better now than we were then, though the show still has its charms. It's packed with ideas, in truth too many. The likes of the Fast Show and Little Britain were about to change the face of TV sketch comedy, by having quick sketches involving the same actors and characters and catchphrases every week. We were still working in the tradition of Monty Python and Not the Nine o clock News, producing a show which had different stuff in it every week. There was the odd running joke and catchphrase (though nothing that was in every week and all growing organically rather than cynically repeated) but the problem was that we had way too much material and the sketches were all fairly long. So even though we had recorded several sketches with the "Thank You" Bishops, only one ever got shown and there wasn't time to do a Stewart Lee's True Fables every week (I think only two got shown which isn't enough to build up a following), even Simon Quinlank only crops up 3 or 4 times. Something like the driving instructor to the girl who smelt of spam in hindsight seem obvious characters to have coming back on a weekly basis, but I don't think either of them even appear until episode 5. And there is a massive cast of actors which means there is no sense of a comedy team working together.
And loads of stuff that I associate with the programme: the false Rod Hull, moon on a stick, the different teachers, the pie pie, don't even appear in this series.
We really were just trying to cram in too much - we were both overflowing with ideas back then - and I do remember that the recordings went on for hours and included lots of stuff that didn't make it to the screen. We're hoping some of this might get rescued and turn up as extras, though we're waiting to find out what the BBC will send us and what might be on the four cans of 16mm film that I have been keeping in a box for 15 years. It wasn't quite as good as thought it might be, though was still very funny and full of promise and included performances from people who were unknown then and who have gone on to much bigger and better things: Sally Phillips, the actor Kevin Eldon, Alistair McGowan, John Thompson and future Oscar nominee and writer of the remake of Arthur, Peter Baynham. It is, if anything, overloaded with stuff and I remain very proud of all the work I did back then with Stew. Good to know that I am better now though. Although certainly in this first series, despite being billed as the fat and unattractive one, I am surprised to see how (relatively) slim I am (and when you see us both in our pants in the Urban Man sketch you can see Stew is in no sense lithe). Looking through the press cuttings that I found as I was looking for extras I am constantly referred to as the fat and unattractive one, which perhaps shows that if you say something people will believe it. I think I believed it myself too. Oh if I could only go back in time and slap that young idiot across the face. And then make sweet, sweet love to him.
We're going to cram the DVD full of extras - we did commentaries for all six shows and a 40 minute chat about our memories of it all and there's going to be lots more besides - and I think fans of Lee and Herring and fans of us separately will find it very interesting and entertaining. This first box set will be out by Christmas (probably three or four discs) and the second series will follow next year. If those do well then hopefully we can get TMWRNJ out too at some point. But it all depends if we lose our shirts on Fist of Fun. This is something we're doing off our own bat, using our own money, just because we want to get it out there. So hopefully people will appreciate that and help us recoup the tens of thousands of pounds it has cost us by buying it rather than illegally downloading it. We're not sure how much each series will cost to buy just yet. It will only be available from gofasterstripe and from us at gigs, so we're relying on you. I am pretty confident that it will sell well enough to justify this bold venture, but I am mainly just pleased that it's going to be out there for people to see. It's flawed and it's probably not quite as good as you remember it being (this was the case for me at least), but it's a lot of fun. It's a fist of fun.
Please do not insert it in your anus.
