Stewart Lee's previous book How I Escaped My Certain Fate drew on three live shows to deconstruct the nature of stand-up comedy. With its heavy use of footnotes there was a nod in structure to T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. For his new book, the slimmer volume Stewart Lee! The 'If You Prefer a Milder Comedian Please Ask for One!' EP, Lee draws inspiration from The Specials' 1980 five-track EP The Special AKA Live!, live material surplus to any long player. This new book is based on just one stand-up show, in which Stewart Lee examines the mechanics of comedy and the stand-up's craft, as he explains in this interview with comedy critic and Resonance FM DJ Ben Thompson.
