Baconface: It's All Bacon!

Stewart Lee is Baconface. Who knew? Well quite a few people, but now the cat is right out of the bag and the bacon is cooked. This gnarly veteran of Canada's alternative comedy scene is a cipher for Lee to play one big industry in-joke on willing Edinburgh audiences. Lee almost certainly has enough devotees happy to fill Stand 2 for the run to hear him replay a routine via an alter ego, and enjoy his character's take on the modern mores of standup. There is more to it than that, but not too much more for the 'outsider'.

Surely, even though it is original material, only a Lee fan would truly derive pleasure from a routine about going to an annual fancy dress function dressed as Margaret Attwood, each time portraying a different era of her life. Though the rhythm (and, in the aforementioned example, the material) is familiar, the growling Rich Hall-like delivery is a novelty spin. Freer still is the unreconstructed Baconface's ability to deliver lines that would look out of place—delivered straight—in Lee's set.

"He's third in line to the bone," Baconface says of Prince George as he espouses the most heinous of kiddy-fiddling crimes in the name of republicanism. The single most rewarding aspect of this show is watching Lee in glee. He relishes little improvised asides and the distancing from his trademark sullenness is liberating for all. Baconface is the comedian's comedian's comedian; a curio for the comedy connoisseur.