STEWART Lee is often described as ‘the comedian’s comedian’. But he’s not having any of it.

“I don’t think it’s the case,” he says. “Most younger comedians seem to hate me, I think, and because I’m not really on the club circuit any more, and do my shows in theatres, I’m not part of any community. None of the new ones know or see my stuff anyway which is good I suppose, because if they did they would give up.”

Stewart, who brings new show Content Provider to the Alhambra this month, has been a stand-up for 28 years, and won just about every award going. Yet he manages to keep his material fresh and relevant.

“It’s all I can do,” he says, simply. “I write more material than any other comparable stand-up, and I cover a lot of ground on the tours every year, but I’m getting worn out. I started writing the new show in June, 2016, then Brexit happened and obviously you can’t not mention it but I found myself staying awake for about a week trying to work out what was going on so I could work it into the set. Brexit and Trump have made comics’ lives hard. How people are behaving is beyond satire, so what do you satirise?”

Content Provider, he says, is a different beast from his last show, Comedy Vehicle. “This is one two-hour through line, although I’ve had to keep the ideas and structure a little less rigid than usual to cope with the sudden surges in news events,” he says. “There’s also an apparently meaningless set which is actually very subtle and cleverly linked to the themes of the show in a way which becomes clear over the evening. It is made entirely from the second hand DVDs of other stand-up comedians, none of which I paid more than 10p for. Other comedians’ DVD are currently the cheapest building material in the world.”

Stewart’s BBC2 show was cancelled in February after ten years and four multi-award winning series. The fans were gutted. Was he surprised?

“Not really,” he says. “The BBC is facing massive cuts so something had to go from the comedy slate. Also, I’d done about all I could with that format. The truth is, financially I’m better off touring that amount of material for two years, making a live DVD then selling it to Netflix than I am giving more material away to BBC2 for less money.

“I’m 48 with two kids and doing a job with no pension plan, so I need to be realistic about making hay while people want to have my hay.”

With no more telly on the horizon, Stewart, whose influences range from Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and Dave Allen to Harry Hill, Daniel Kitson and Josie Long, is looking at touring right through to 2018.

“I’m supposed to be making a folk rock album with the group Trembling Bells at some point,” he reveals. “I wrote a comedy drama about Brexit in September that is currently with a production company trying to find someone who’ll pay to make it.

“I’ll write another book for Faber, this one about doing stand-up on TV. But I need to slow down. I have no life and no friends. I don’t do enough with the kids.

"After the tour ends in the summer of 2018 I’ll lie on the sofa for a bit and watch ‘60s Italian westerns. They’re all I’ve watched for the last few years really, I’ve see nearly 200. I like them because the directors and writers tried to slip weird and interesting and political things into them. I suppose that’s what I try to do with stand-up. At the end of the day it’s still just comedy, but maybe you can make it meet something better half way.”

  • Stewart Lee’s Content Provider is at the Alhambra on Saturday, June 17. Call (01274) 432000.