Stewart Lee maybe the 41st best comedian according to a recent Channel 4 programme, but his mother doesn’t rate him as high as Tom O’Connor, who didn’t make the list at all. Fortunately for him though, the Fringe audience obviously rate him much higher and hence he is selling out the huge UdderBELLY purple cow on a regular basis. Lee, for me was one of the first ‘alternative’ comedians on the scene and still remains one of the best. He is not in your face, he doesn’t rant and rave, he just gets on with the job in hand, that of entertaining several hundred punters for an hour or more. His material is wide, varied and at times slightly unconventional, it’s the quickest I’ve ever seen a ‘call-back’ used in a set, but Celebrity Big Brother, political correctness, weight watchers, Channel 4, and cruise entertainment are all topics that come under his microscope. He went through a quiet time prior to his involvement in the controversial Jerry Springer The Opera, but hopefully for us all he will be around for along time and eventually may even convince his mother that he is a comic of standing. ****