Stewart Lee moved to London to become a stand-up comedian in 1989. Since then he has played festivals in Montreal, Melbourne, Adelaide, Kilkenny and Auckland, as well as a daunting seventeen years at the Edinburgh Fringe. Stewart co-wrote and co-starred in the BBC radio and TV series Fist Of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy with Richard Herring in the mid-90's, and had his first novel published in 2002.

Since then he has co-written and directed the National Theatre's Jerry Springer - The Opera and is currently working on a new project there about folk song and the Napoleonic wars. Stewart writes regularly for The Sunday Times, The Wire and various other newspapers and magazines, and has just completed a documentary for Channel 5 about the religious right in Britain.