A comedian has launched a scathing attack on Tunbridge Wells – despite trying to sell tickets for a show in the town.
Stewart Lee, who rose to fame as a double act with fellow comedian Richard Herring in the 1990s, is planning a performance at the Assembly Hall Theatre on May 12.
Mr Lee, who is a self-described ‘Champagne socialist’ and writes regular columns for the left-wing newspaper, The Guardian, was being interviewed by the Times about his forthcoming Tunbridge Wells show when he launched a vicious attack on the town and its people.
He said Tunbridge Wells embodied ‘both arrogance and ignorance simultaneously’ and that coming back to the town was like a ‘dog returning to its own vomit’.
The Times had simply asked the 54-year-old Oxford graduate, who had toured in Tunbridge Wells before, whether he enjoyed performing here.
He replied: “Not really. I enjoy most places though. After 33 years most towns are a done deal now, and it is a pleasure to go back year after year, but there are a couple of places in the UK that I always worry about.
“Carlisle just doesn’t seem to have a playable venue; in Bromley there was a fight in the audience, after I finally went back there this year against my better judgement. And Tunbridge Wells obviously just has this reputation, doesn’t it – for embodying both arrogance and ignorance simultaneously?
“I probably won’t come here again after this tour. A man has to know his limitations.
“But I know coming to Tunbridge Wells is important to the people there that do like me, so one comes back like a loyal dog to its own vomit.”
He also added, presumably as a ‘joke’: “I believe Tunbridge Wells is the only town to have been twinned with a branch of Carluccios? The brilliant novelist Dan Rhodes is from here, of course, but he left.”
His words have not been welcomed by the Leader of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and the local MP.
Cllr Tom Dawlings said: “It’s disappointing to hear views seemingly based entirely on the stereotypical reactionary who signs off as Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells.
“I know the people who devote their non-working hours to helping with their sports clubs, volunteering to look after the parks and the common or are involved with the many and varied community activities in and around the Town.
“Last week I met some of those hosting Ukrainian refugees in Tunbridge Wells and groups co-ordinating and taking supplies to the Polish border to help with the refugees fleeing Ukraine.
“None of them embodied arrogance and ignorance simultaneously.”
While Greg Clark, MP, added: “Tunbridge Wells is certainly unique and famous for being vocal. We don’t want to be the same as everywhere else.
“But, that doesn’t make us arrogant. In reality, we are generous and broad minded and don’t mind being teased about our famous stereotype. It’s one reason I hope that Stewart Lee will come again – I’ve seen him perform many times and enjoy his creativity and originality.”
Stewart Lee, whose career has been on the wane since splitting with comedian Richard Herring, now struggles to fill small venues. His planned show for the 1000-seat Assembly Hall on May 12 is yet to sell-out. A spokesman for the venue, which is Council-run, dismissed the comments as ‘tongue in cheek’. But it is not the first time the stand-up comic has courted controversy.
In 2020, Tonbridge & Malling MP Tom Tugendhat, who is of Jewish decent, accused the comedian of being ‘antisemitic’ after Lee mocked his name in a column in the Observer.
Mr Tugendhat, said at the time that it was ‘dog whistle’ for portraying Jews as foreigners, adding: “Antisemitism is now so mainstream this no longer surprises me.”
