Simon Munnery – Standing Still at Unity Theatre, Liverpool
Andrew Anderson
Stewart Lee tells a story about trying to persuade Simon Munnery to do a TV show in the early 2000s. ‘He wasn’t really interested in doing television or being famous,’ said Lee, who directed Munnery’s 2001 series Attention Scum where Munnery criss-crossed the country in a transit van. ‘He only did it in the end because he wanted the van.’
This anecdote gets to the crux of what makes Munnery such a superior comedian: he doesn’t care about anything other than being funny (well, except for vans). He’s not toadying up to Michael McIntyre’s cronies in the hope of getting on his cringey Comedy Roadshow. He’s not cashing in his voice for crappy TV ads for teabags. He’s just being a great comedian.
As a result you don’t see him on the box all that often. Which is a shame, since no one tells esoteric anecdotes or delivers peculiar punch lines better than he. Still, all the more reason to go and see him live and in the flesh in his brand new show. I’ll see you there.
