Baconface – Edinburgh festival 2013 review

A Stewart Lee set is such a rarefied thing, its every word and beat so achingly precise, you wouldn't blame Lee for wanting to let his hair down. Step forward the "cult 1980s Canadian standup" Baconface, a new alter ego, with a mask made of bacon rashers, that unites Lee with his inner hack. The true identity of this funnyman from Chilliwack, British Columbia, has been the worst-kept secret in Edinburgh – but not as badly kept as it is on stage, where the character's differences from, and similarities to, Lee form the grizzly bear's share of the joke. If the act attracts anyone who's never heard of Lee, heaven knows what they'll make of it.

For most of us, though, the pleasure is in seeing Lee at play, whether putting signature material into the mouth of a macho backwoodsman, or delivering the kind of boorish comedy Baconface's creator loudly disdains. The opening routine, an encounter with a Seventh-day Adventist seeking the question to which "Jesus Christ" is the answer, stretches the patience in familiar Lee fashion, just as a setpiece about "rimming a 750lb male Canadian grizzly" relies on Lee-style repetition to accumulate its comic power. By contrast, when Baconface deploys his catchphrase, "It's all bacon," or says of the two-week-old Prince George that "by royal appointment, he can suck my big fat cock", we're laughing at Lee being crasser than he'd ever allow himself to be.

Insofar as Baconface is a standalone character, he claims to have invented standup, and mocks comedy fashion – much as Lee would. His "regionally specific" material name-checks local ice-hockey players and musicians: the straight bat with which Lee plays Baconface's Canadianness is very funny. But the gags about Bigfoot being rechristened Big Hairy Ball-Sack, for example, soon wear thin, even if you're in on the identity joke. It's great fun to watch Lee slumming it. But the act serves mainly to remind us what's good about Lee when he's not concealed by cured meat.