How I Escaped My Certain Fate (47 page)
Read How I Escaped My Certain Fate Online
Authors: Stewart Lee
Does Johnny think God would like the Johnny Vegas act? ‘God would see that by accident one man has got as much as he can out of misery,’ is all he will say. And what if Johnny Vegas were to do a shit on stage, would God
approve of that, would he see it as an expression of his love? ‘Whatever happens,’ Johnny Vegas concludes, ‘I am God’s instrument. Maybe I should have used me own name for some things, and kept Johnny as a character. But I didn’t. And it’s too late now.’
Esquire
magazine,
December 2004
Brand on
Big Brother’s
Little Brother
This is an interrogation/interview that Johnny Vegas and I improvised from areas of conversation that I had suggested to him previously, included as an extra on the
41st Best Stand-Up Ever
DVD, in order not to misrepresent Russell Brand, whom I had misquoted, knowingly, during the show itself. I maintained that I had no obligation to represent Brand’s behaviour accurately as what I was doing was a ‘meta-discussion
’.
The actress Jackie Clune, who penned the poorly received Denise van Outen vehicle Blondes, had just written a
newspaper
piece about her opinion of a routine Vegas had recently performed in a live show I promoted, which the
Guardian
had described as being the literal equivalent of a sexual assault, implying that his audience volunteer should press charges. When I challenged Clune about the rights and wrongs of speculating at length about something that she hadn’t seen, having not been present at the show, and that wasn’t proven or even corroborated by the supposed victim, she said the truth of the events was immaterial, because her piece was a ‘meta-discussion’ about the issues it raised, rather than a piece of reportage
.
VEGAS AND LEE SIT FACING ONE ANOTHER IN CHAIRS IN THE CELLAR OF THE KING’S HEAD, CROUCH END, LONDON
.
JOHNNY VEGAS
: But, er, is it right, I, I’ve got here … Is it an actual quote that, um, that you have Russell Brand saying about racism on
Celebrity Big Brother
? ’Cause you claim …
STEWART LEE
: Yeah … No, he …
VEGAS
: … that he said, ‘Ooh, there’s some bad racism and stuff like that going down today and no mistake, my liege. It’s made my winkle go right small, it has …’
LEE
: Yeah.
VEGAS
: ‘Oh yes it has, yeah, and my ball-bag, my ball-bag [laughing] has gone up my bum. Here’s H from Steps.’
LEE
: Yeah it was. When I saw it, it was literally about two days after that had broke. And I saw him say that. And I thought that he was, was trying to, like, smooth over the whole thing, and I thought, ‘That is so brilliant, ’cause if you just say that onstage, if it will expose the kind of ridiculousness of the attempt of a light-entertainment celebrity in a light-entertainment programme to deal with something as serious as this kind of racial bullying …’ So, I mean, I just thought it was perfect, so I wrote it down and, um, and it, you know, people just laugh openly at it, ’cause it’s so stupid.
VEGAS
: Yeah, but …
LEE
: It was great.
VEGAS
: Um, I’ve … been back. I actually checked it.
LEE
: Oh well, I’m glad.
VEGAS
: Yeah, yeah …
LEE
: No, it’s good, ’cause you should, you know … I’m glad.
VEGA
s: Yeah, yeah, but what he actually said was, ‘Racism, it’s such a wank thing, innit? It’s such a pain in the arse that someone would go round being racist …’
LEE
: [
quietly agreeing
] Mmm.
VEGAS
: ‘And individually, I think if people were made
culpable
for their actions and were made to look at
themselves
, they’d think, “Oh God, I shouldn’t say that.” And yet the way that they are behaving collectively is obviously abhorrent.’ Now, do you think it’s … you’ve got enough artistic licence to …
LEE
: Well, I think …
VEGAS
: To actually twist the words of another, of a fellow comedian?
LEE
: I don’t think they’re really twisted, I think that the essence of what he said is, um … The essence of what he said is the same as what I said. The only, the only
difference
between what I said he said and what he actually said is that what he actually said, it starts to make quite a lot of sense towards the end, and obviously that wouldn’t …
VEGAS
: That didn’t suit your …
LEE
: Doesn’t suit my …
VEGAS
: Comedic …
LEE
: … purposes. ’Cause what I’m looking at … This is like a meta-discussion about the event, it’s not to do with what he actually said, it’s to do with how celebrity culture cannot address a serious issue, and that is the important thing. It doesn’t really matter, er …
VEGAS
: I think it …
LEE
: It doesn’t really matter what he said. I mean the important thing is that he’s …
something
… he said something like it. And it can just be changed to my own ends. And I think Russell himself would agree …
VEGAS
: And where does that, where does that …
LEE
: … that it’s fine.
VEGAS
: … where does that end, in terms of, you know … So you, so you see yourself as Stewart Lee, demigod, who can take anything out of context … lee: Well …
VEGAS
: … as long as it suits the purpose of your comedy?
LEE
: It’s not taking it out of context, because it wasn’t actually …
VEGAS
: Well …
LEE
: It wasn’t said, it wasn’t said.
VEGAS
: Well, misquoting …
LEE
: It’s not even misquoted, it has almost no …
VEGAS
: It’s misquoting, ’cause he never said …
LEE
: … relationship with it.
VEGAS
: ‘My winkle has gone right small …’
LEE
: No, but he has said …
VEGAS
: ‘… oh yes it has, and my ball-bag has gone right up my bum.’
LEE:
He’s said things like that on other, on other occasions.
VEGAS
: Yeah, but maybe not in relationship to racism.
LEE
: No, but he, you know …
VEGAS
: [
something indistinct
] loves genocide …
LEE
: But if he had, if he had, if he had tried to address racism, er, and he, and he had …
VEGAS
: That’s how you think he would have …
LEE
: Yeah. And the fact that he didn’t do that, and he actually said something quite good is not … that’s not … it’s not … that doesn’t detract from what I’m trying to do. What I’m trying to do is look at the bigger picture about how … You know, racism’s bad, we all agree with that. Yeah? But it’s not something that can be easily dealt with by celebrity. And, and when you think of celebrity, the person you think of, I think, for most people is Russell Brand. And the way that they think he speaks is in the way that I’ve said. So to me, it doesn’t really matter what he’s said. The important thing is that, you know, it’s … And I don’t think he would mind either. I think he’d look at that piece and he’d go, ‘Well, fair play, that’s a good bit …’
VEGAS
: Have you asked him?
LEE
: I haven’t asked him, no. But I think … I know that he likes my work, and I think if he saw that he’d feel flattered to be misquoted, rather than annoyed. I think he’d, d’you know what, I think he’d be delighted by it.
VEGAS
: Doesn’t that sound presumptuous?
LEE
: It’s not … It’s … It is presumptuous, but I think that you … When you, when you’re, when you’re working with these kind of ideas, you’re working in … You have to make these kind of bold leaps, of connecting ideas. And if, in connecting them, you’re not strictly … If, if in connecting them, you, er, betray someone and make them look worse than they are, then that, that’s like a casualty of war. And the war is about trying to reach the greater truth. And the truth is that racism is a bad thing, and that’s what … And I think that if … You know, oh what, ‘He didn’t say that, he said, “It’s a wank,”’ you know. It doesn’t really matter, does it, what he said. The point is that, er, that the … there’s a different … there’s a thing we’re driving at that’s more important than what he actually said.
VEGAS
: But, sorry, do you … Would you … Do you sort of see … I suppose it’s a mad thing with comedy, isn’t it, because you go … You’ll … You’ll make friends sort of within the industry …
LEE
: Yeah.
VEGAS
: … but then you have kind of got to intellectually remain completely impartial …
LEE
: [
neutrally
] Mm.
VEGAS
: Do you know what I mean? Do you ever, do you ever struggle with that, with going, ‘This is perfect for
having
, like, the piss taken out of it, but … I’m going to see him in a bar, I’m going to come across this person’ – do you know what I mean? – ‘and I’ll actually feel quite
awkward
about …’
LEE
: Yeah, well, I mean …
VEGAS
: ‘… what I’ve said about them’?
LEE
: You know, I feel the same about Russell Brand as I would about Tom O’Connor. You know, the stuff ’s out there now, and, er, you know, let’s see, see what happens, you know. And I, er, it’s not like throwing down a gauntlet to him. But, er, I’m just saying that I view him as a kind of resource now in the way that I would, you know, f– … a funny animal or something …
VEGAS
: [
laughs
.]
LEE
: Or, er … a bad … bad weather. It’s just something to, to exaggerate. And like, he’s become like a phenomena, you know …
VEGAS
: Mmm.
LEE
: Like a, a, a … a rain or something, and, and less like a … He’s not like a person to me now, you know?
VEGAS
: He’s a product, or …
LEE
: He’s a product. And if I choose to attribute things to him that he didn’t say, then that’s my prerogative, I feel, now.
VEGAS
: Right.
LEE
: It’s like if you, you know, when, if you’re doing a routine about a funny dog, and you imagine what the dog’s thinking, no one goes, ‘Oh, you don’t know that that dog thought, “Oh, I wish I could have a bone.”’ It’s the same … That’s how I feel about a celebrity, about a, about a Russell Brand character … I have to, I kind of have to impose my thoughts onto …
VEGAS
: I know.
LEE
: … canvas.
VEGAS
: In theory, in theory, if he got in touch and said, ‘Actually, I find that deeply offensive,’ would you remove it?
LEE
: Well, um, you know this is a discussion we had before filming the, er … the DVD. It was pointed out to me that he didn’t actually say this. And I said, ‘Well, the way we’ll get round it is I’ll get Johnny Vegas in the DVD extra to ask me a question about it, so we can put what he actually said out there and say, you know, we’re covered,’ but the, but most people won’t watch this part …
VEGAS
: Yeah [
laughs
].
LEE
: And so, you know, it’s sort of, it’s covered legally, but not in such a way as it impacts on the, er, the actual piece itself.
VEGAS
: Right.
LEE
: So this in many ways is a, a coping mechanism.
VEGAS
: So you’ve … I wondered why you’d bring in such a simpleton to interview you. I’m just a patsy.
LEE
: Yeah. You’re a patsy. And you’ve been given the … You’ve been primed with that quote so that it would come up and I can address the issue.
VEGAS
: Am I allowed to …
LEE
: It’s like a footnote.
VEGAS
: Am I allowed to feel stupid now?
LEE
: Um, no, you need to feel that you’ve done …
VEGAS
: Have I done great things here?
LEE
: You’ve done great things here, yeah, yeah.