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The Harry Hill Show - Stewart Lee
Harry Hill and Stewart Lee have a meandering chat. It's a kind of "visual podcast", if you will. Hill and Lee are well known comedians in the UK. Lee is well on his way to legendary status for his acerbic, self-aware stand-up. Hill favours a more whimsical approach. Expect ludicrous costumes, surreal satire and a lengthy digression about the history of castles.
posted by mokey on Jan 20, 2026 at 1:54 PM
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Lee was one of the writers for Jerry Springer the opera, after which he perfected a sort of ultra-wry standup on extremely intelligent topics. Harry Hill is a standup who hosted a 'best video clips' show for over a decade. This might seem like an incongruous pairing, but Hill's been hiding his intelligence in plain sight for his entire career - before which he worked as a doctor. Looking forward to checking this out
posted by The River Ivel at 2:18 PM
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his bit in Glasgow taking the piss (is that how they say it?) out of the Scots there was utterly slaying . . . kinda punching down but hey the English did make a scot git their last proper King of England so they're even
posted by Aman Aplan at 2:53 PM
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Lee was the script editor for Harry Hill's tv show, so they have known each other for aaaages
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:57 PM
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But which is better?
There's only one way to find out...
posted by Grangousier at 3:03 PM
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HH delighted me a few years back by starring in two made-for-TV movies of Professor Branestawm. I loved the Branestawm books as a kid, and the Charlie Higson adaptation got the setting just right.
This looks like fun.
posted by scruss at 4:27 PM
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Mixed feelings about this, as Harry Hill's comedy persona is pretty much everything I dislike about comedy, while I absolutely love Stewart Lee, but it turns out Harry Hill as an interviewer is pretty acceptable (despite him insisting on wearing the stupid outfit). Lee is a delight as usual, although this feels like a bit of a private conversation between two old friends which isn't really intended for a broader audience. Still, I'll take it.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:33 PM
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Aman Aplan, I wouldn't say Lee was punching down there, since he does not have any genuine criticism or ill-feeling towards Scottish people. It's more a case of adopting an adversarial position as a joke. The audience would know there was no real anti-Scottish sentiment.
posted by mokey at 1:27 AM
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"visual podcast"
Hmmm. So, something like a T.V. segment?
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 2:58 AM
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Harry Hill is a delight as the host of Junior Bake Off, the latest series of which is currently showing in the UK. About 90% of what he says goes right over the kids' heads, as he uses cultural references that only adults would get (and even then, probably only adults who are over 50), but at the same time he's able to get the kids to fully engage with him in a way that they could probably only do with someone as utterly bonkers as Harry Hill.
posted by essexjan at 3:17 AM
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It baffled me to hear the phrase "watch a podcast" roll so effortlessly off someone's tongue, there.
Folks, it's simple: a podcast is an RSS or ATOM feed of audio episodes. It is not, under any circumstances, a produced YouTube video of two blokes chatting at microphones.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 8:01 AM
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I will say that I'm just as surprised that Danny O'Brien doesn't seem to have an account here as I am that he introduced Stewart Lee to The Internet in 1988.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 8:03 AM
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Saw Harry Hill live some time in the early 2000s. I wasn't a great fan, tbh, unlike Mr MMDP who dragged me along. He was really a lot better live than on the box, for me. The surreal stuff was a lot funnier than I expected.
Stewart Lee and "the UKIPS". That is all - or would have been if Farrago hadn't strapped them to a hospital trolley in a thunderstorm and reanimated them as Tiny Tommy Ten-Names and the Flagshaggers (worst band name ever).
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 8:24 AM
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I'm just going to give it to you straight like a pear cider that's made from 100% pears, podcasts haven't been audio only for some time now.
posted by Pendragon at 8:25 AM
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I will say I greatly enjoyed seeing Stewart Lee in a hamster costume singing a little song at the end.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 9:20 AM
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MetaFilter introduced me to Stewart Lee when Comedy Vehicle was airing, and my last two trips to the UK were arranged in part so that I could see his two most recent sets. One of the things I'm really grateful to this site for.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:48 AM
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Pendragon, that interpretation is incompatible with the values of the Carphone Warehouse.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:34 AM
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MetaFilter introduced me to Stewart Lee...
Was it this post? For me, my introduction was this post about the comedy that influenced John Oliver.
Warning: both posts are rabbit holes.
Speaking of rabbit holes, for Christmas my wife gave me Lee's book How I Escaped My Certain Fate – The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian, and there's no better way to pass a cold winter night than read it, his various voices resonating in your head. He writes copious footnotes (the longest being three or so pages long) to accompany his prose and transcripts of shows, and it's a very revealing window into how his brain works, not to mention being frequently hilarious.
posted by vverse23 at 7:38 AM
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vverse23, it was this one!
posted by Panthalassa at 7:13 PM
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