Rather than letting a career rough patch get him down, comedian Stewart Lee turned his bad luck into material for his stand-up show. He tells Thom Kennedy about getting back on track.

In conversation Stewart Lee is attentive, funny, and an excellent speaker. Yet his name isn't one you'll often see in lights.

This easy, yet exceptionally dry style translates wonderfully to his onstage stand-up set.

He is as lucid to talk to in person as he is when he is addressing an audience, whether it is on the subject of his humanist beliefs or his supposed failure as a comedian.

In conversation Stewart Lee is attentive, funny, and an excellent speaker. Yet his name isn't one you'll often see in lights.

The 40-year-old may have played his part in some of the best left-field comedies produced in Britain in the past 20 years but he says there are still plenty of people who don't even know who he is.

When he was named in 41st place in Channel 4's list of the top 100 stand-up comedians of all time, it was a surprise.

He said: "I'm not really a household name, and there weren't many people who weren't household names in that list.

"It's meaningless, a list like that. It was arrived at by critics, an internet vote, and a phone vote, and the public will vote for the last person they saw, which at the moment is probably Peter Kay."

"I'm not really a household name, and there weren't many people who weren't household names in that list."

So, it's fair to say, Lee's decision to name his stand-up show 41st Best Stand Up Ever comes with a dash of irony.

Especially so in the context of what was happening in Lee's life when he wrote the material for the show, in July last year.

A television programme which had been scheduled was scrapped and he had failed to procure a deal to release a live DVD.

At this point, being listed among some of the most famous - albeit not necessarily the best - comedians in the world seemed like a long way away.

He said: "This show was about how funny it is I'm the 41st best stand-up ever, but I can't get a DVD deal, and my TV pilot was inexplicably cancelled, so there's no relation between a claim and personal achievement.

"I had started writing for this show and doing things I thought were for this series, one of which was writing a stand-up set about being an insect," he added.

"I was going to perform at entymology events and I did it at a conference at a reservoir."

"This show was about how funny it is I'm the 41st best stand-up ever, but I can't get a DVD deal and my TV pilot was inexplicably cancelled."

Stewart had a costume of an insect made and the plan was to secretly film the gig for the TV show.

He added: "Then they cancelled the show, and I was left with an expensive insect costume, and a booking I was obliged to honour at an entymologists' conference, just because I was generating material for the show."

Since then, his career has taken a definite turn for the better.

The television programme was recommissioned for BBC2, with the title Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, alongside long-time collaborator and television comedy maestro Armando Ianucci.

Then, in a complete turnaround a new DVD deal came out of the woodwork.

It meant an end for much of the material which makes up his current tour.

When the curtain comes down on his show at Bromley's Churchill Theatre next week, it will also come down on the current material, which Lee reckons he has performed around 150 times.

Does this mean there will be something of a pantomime atmosphere at the show?

"The show's an argument with my mother trying to prove I'm better than Tom O'Connor. My mum thinks I'm not as he plays on cruises and I don't."

"Yes, but only in my subconscious," he replies, before breaking into one of many wicked cackles which he spreads throughout our conversation.

Lee has attracted large amounts of critical success, which hasn't always necessarily translated into bigger audiences.

He saw huge notoriety when he co-wrote Jerry Springer - The Opera, alongside Richard Thomas, attracting the unwanted attention of several extremist Christian groups.

Whatever critical success Lee attracts he still has yet to win one person over - his mum.

She still refuses to accept he is a successful comedian.

He said: "My mum really loves (former Crosswits presenter) Tom O'Connor, and I suppose the show's an argument with my mother trying to prove I'm better than Tom O'Connor, but I'm not.

"My mum thinks I'm not as he plays on cruises and I don't, if I was successful I'd be playing on cruises.

"To my mum I'm a delusional fantasist with no visible evidence of success at any level."

"Also, he has umbrellas you can buy with his face on and I haven't got that.

"It's an interesting generational shift and a gulf about what people think success is, he added.

"And for my mum it's playing cruises and an umbrella with my face on.

"She doesn't read the papers where I get good reviews.

"To her I'm a delusional fantasist with no visible evidence of success at any level."

With his growing reputation, though, it can't be too long before the Stewart Lee umbrella range is launched.

Stewart Lee live at The Churchill, High Street, Bromley. One night only - April 20. 7.45pm. Call 0870 0606620 for tickets (booking fee applies).