The Last of England by Ford Madox Brown, depicting emigrants leaving England

Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement in general is termed migration. There are many reasons why people might choose to emigrate. Some are for reasons of religious, political or economic freedom or escape. Others have personal reasons such as marriage. Some people living in rich nations with cold climates choose to move to warmer climates when they retire.

Emigration had a profound influence on the world in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, when millions of poor families left Europe for the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, the rest of Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.

Even though definitions may be vague and vary somewhat, emigration/immigration should not be confused with the phenomenon of involuntary migration, such as instances of population transfer or ethnic cleansing.

Factors leading to emigration[link]

Motives to migrate can be either incentives attracting people away, known as pull factors, or circumstances encouraging a person to leave, known as push factors, for example:

Poster showing a cross-section of the Cunard Line's emigrant liner RMS Aquitania, launched in 1913.

Push factors[link]

• Lack of employment or entrepreneurial opportunities
• Lack of political or religious rights
• Restrictions on practice of religion
• Shortage of farmland; hard to start new farms
• Oppressive legal/political conditions
• Military draft, warfare
• Famine or drought
• Cultural fights with other cultural groups
• Expulsion by armed force or coercion

Pull factors[link]

• Better opportunities for acquiring farms for self and children
• Cheap purchase of farmland
• Instant wealth (as in California Gold Rush)
• More job opportunities
• Higher pay
• Prepaid travel (from relatives)
• Better welfare programmes
• Better schools
• Join friends and relatives who have already moved
• Build a new nation
• Build religious community
• Political freedom
• Cultural richness

Emigration restrictions[link]

East Germany erected the Berlin Wall to prevent emigration westward

Some countries restrict the ability of their citizens to emigrate to other countries. After 1668, the Qing Emperor banned Han Chinese migration to Manchuria. In 1681, the emperor ordered construction of the Willow Palisade, a barrier beyond which the Chinese were prohibited from encroaching on Manchu and Mongol lands.^[1]

The Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union began such restrictions in 1918, with laws and borders tightening until even illegal emigration was nearly impossible by 1928.^[2] To strengthen this, they set up internal passport controls and individual city Propiska ("place of residence") permits, along with internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the 101st kilometre, which rules greatly restricted mobility within even small areas.^[3]

At the end of World War II in 1945, the Soviet Union occupied several Eastern European countries, together called the Eastern Bloc, with the majority of those living in the newly acquired areas aspiring to independence and wanted the Soviets to leave.^[4] Before 1950, over 15 million immigrants emigrated from Soviet-occupied eastern European countries to the west in the five years immediately following World War II.^[5] By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc.^[6] Restrictions implemented in the Eastern Bloc stopped most East-West migration, with only 13.3 million migrations westward between 1950 and 1990.^[7] However, hundreds of thousands of East Germans annually emigrated to West Germany through a "loophole" in the system that existed between East and West Berlin, where the four occupying World War II powers governed movement.^[8] The emigration resulted in massive "brain drain" from East Germany to West Germany of younger educated professionals, such that nearly 20% of East Germany's population had migrated to West Germany by 1961.^[9] In 1961, East Germany erected a barbed-wire barrier that would eventually be expanded through construction into the Berlin Wall, effectively closing the loophole.^[10] In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, followed by the unification of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling international movement was also emulated by China, Mongolia, and North Korea.^[6] North Korea still tightly restricts emigration, and contained the most strict emigration bans in the world even in the late 1980s, before the fall of the Berlin Wall,^[11] though some North Koreans illegally emigrate to China.^[12] Other countries with tight emigration restrictions at one time included Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia from 1975-1979), Laos, North Vietnam, Iraq, South Yemen and Cuba.^[13]

See also[link]

Look up emigration in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Deportation
• Diaspora
• Eastern Bloc emigration and defection
• Émigré
• Exile
• Feminization of migration
• Immigration
• Foot voting
• Human migration
• Settlement
• International Organization for Migration
• Migration Letters
• Political asylum
• Political migration
• Population transfer
• Refugee
• RMS Mooltan
• Separation barrier
• Snowbird (people)
• Swedish emigration to the United States
• Yerida (Jewish emigration from Israel)

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Böcker, Anita (1998), Regulation of Migration: International Experiences, Het Spinhuis, ISBN 90-5589-095-2 
• Dale, Gareth (2005), Popular Protest in East Germany, 1945-1989: Judgements on the Street, Routledge, ISBN 0-7146-5408-6 
• Dowty, Alan (1989), Closed Borders: The Contemporary Assault on Freedom of Movement, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-04498-4 
• Harrison, Hope Millard (2003), Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-09678-3 
• Krasnov, Vladislav (1985), Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List, Hoover Press, ISBN 0-8179-8231-0 
• Mynz, Rainer (1995), Where Did They All Come From? Typology and Geography of European Mass Migration In the Twentieth Century; EUROPEAN POPULATION CONFERENCE CONGRESS EUROPEAN DE DEMOGRAPHE, United Nations Population Division 
• Pearson, Raymond (1998), The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Macmillan, ISBN 0-312-17407-1 
• Thackeray, Frank W. (2004), Events that changed Germany, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-313-32814-5 

Stewart Lee
Born	(1968-04-05) 5 April 1968 (age 44) Wellington, Shropshire, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Stand-up comedian, writer
Known for	Fist of Fun (1993–1995) This Morning with Richard Not Judy (1998–1999) Jerry Springer: The Opera (2001–2005) 90's Comedian (2005–2006) 41st Best Stand Up Ever! (2007–2008) Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (2009–)
Spouse	Bridget Christie (2006-present)
Children	1 Son 1 daughter
Website
www.stewartlee.co.uk

Stewart Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director. He made his name in the mid 1990s as one half of the radio duo Lee and Herring, a popular success followed through with extensive touring to built up a loyal live following. He gave up comedy in the early 2000s when he became disillusioned by the business and believed he was doomed to be a cult act with limited appeal who had reached the extent of any potential audience. Lee returned to stand up after co-writing and co-directing the surprise mock Broadway hit Jerry Springer - The Opera. Since then he has returned to the live circuit and though BBC and C4 specials and series, has rebuilt a niche audience and a reputation as an anti populist, anti "after the pub" comedian.

He remains a significant voice in UK stand up despite his refusal to appear on the panel shows that have seen many of his contemporaries eclipse him in ticket sales, if not critical acclaim. Although Lee's audience figures are comparatively low, he usually tours to 400-600 capacity venues and standing outside the comedy mainstream, he is well regarded by critics and has been a regular pundit on BBC political programming. In December 2011 he won the award for best male television comic for his series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle which also won best comedy entertainment programme at the 2011 British Comedy Awards.^[1] A 2009 article in The Times referred to him as "the comedian's comedian, and for good reason" and named him "face of the decade".^[2] His stand-up features frequent use of "repetition, call-backs, nonchalant delivery and deconstruction",^[3] a device he jokingly ascribes to his tedious, exacting middle-class persona.

Lee has written music reviews for a number of publications including, since 1995, the Sunday Times.^[4] Through the early 2000s he was a regular presenter on Resonance FM 104.4.^[5] He is noted for his esoteric musical taste. Asked in 2003 what his current favourites were, he said "Most of my favourites are still going like The Fall, Giant Sand and Calexico. I listen to a lot of jazz, 60s and folk music but I really like Ms. Dynamite, and The Streets".^[4] He once said that the only band he liked that anyone else has heard of was R.E.M.. His debut novel, The Perfect Fool, includes an 'audio bibliography' – a list of recommended listening. This mentions that it was his love of the band Giant Sand that first attracted him to visit the American South West.^[6]

Background[link]

Lee was born in Wellington, Shropshire.^[7] He was adopted as a child and grew up in Solihull in the West Midlands.^[8] He attended private school Solihull School, on a scholarship.^[9] He is married to fellow comic Bridget Christie, with whom he has two children.^[10][11] He is a supporter of the British Humanist Association^[12] and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.^[13]

Career[link]

[edit] Early career: Lee and Herring and Fist of Fun

While studying English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford in the 1980s, he wrote and performed comedy in a revue group called "The Seven Raymonds" with Richard Herring, Emma Kennedy, Michael Cosgrave, Richard Canning and Tim Richardson, but did not perform in the well-known Oxford Revue, though he did write for and direct the 1989 Revue. Having moved to London and begun performing stand up comedy after university, he rose to greater prominence in 1990, winning the prestigious Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition. With Richard Herring, Lee wrote material for BBC Radio 4's On the Hour (1991), which was anchored by Chris Morris and was notable for the first appearance of Steve Coogan's celebrated character, Alan Partridge, for which Lee and Herring wrote much early material. After a disagreement with the rest of the cast, Lee and Herring did not remain with the group when On The Hour moved to television as The Day Today and their material was excised from an official release of the radio show in the mid-'90s (though a 2008 CD release would see it reinstated).

In 1992 and 1993, he and Herring wrote and performed Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World for BBC Radio 4, before moving to BBC Radio 1, for one series of Fist of Fun (1993). This was followed by three series entitled, simply, Lee and Herring. These shows mixed sketches with live links and music, in a format that Radio 1 seemed to favour at the time. (Other examples include shows by Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, and Simon Munnery in his guise as "Alan Parker: Urban Warrior".) Fist of Fun moved to television for two BBC Two series, and was followed in 1998 by This Morning with Richard Not Judy, which featured material in a similar vein, but was notable for being broadcast live in a Sunday morning slot. A change in BBC management after the second series of the latter effectively brought his partnership with Herring to an end but the two comedians retain similarities in the political and social acuity of their humour.

Throughout the late nineties he continued performing solo stand-up (something that has always been a mainstay of his career – even whilst in the double act with Herring) and has collaborated with, amongst others, Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh. Indeed, though Barratt and Fielding had worked together in the past, the first seeds of the Boosh were sown whilst working as part of Lee's Edinburgh show King Dong vs Moby Dick in which Barratt and Fielding played a giant penis and a whale, respectively. Lee returned the favour by going on to direct their 1999 Edinburgh show, Arctic Boosh, which remains the template of all their live work.

Career 2000–04: Quitting stand-up[link]

In 2001, Lee published his first novel, The Perfect Fool. It was republished in 2008.^[14] In the same year he performed Pea Green Boat, a stand-up show which revolved around the deconstruction of the Edward Lear poem The Owl and the Pussycat and a tale of his own broken toilet. This would later be condensed to focus mainly on the poem itself, and a 15 minute version aired on Radio 4. In 2007, Go Faster Stripe released a 25-minute edit on CD & 10" Vinyl.

During late 2000 and early 2001, Lee "gradually, incrementally and without any fanfare – or even much thought – gave up being a stand-up comedian",^[15](p2) and 2001 became the first year since 1987 that he did not perform at the Edinburgh Fringe.^[15](p28) Whilst Lee found himself gradually performing less and less standup and moving away from the stage, he continued his directorial duties on television. Two pilots were made for Channel 4, Cluub Zarathrustra and Head Farm, but neither was developed into a series. The former, however, would feature all the ingredients that would later appear in Attention Scum, a BBC2 series fronted by Simon Munnery's League Against Tedium character, which also featured the likes of Kevin Eldon, Johnny Vegas and Roger Mann, as well as Richard Thomas and opera singer Lori Lixenberg, in their guise as "Kombat Opera".

At the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Lee directed Johnny Vegas' first DVD, Who's Ready For Ice Cream?, a move away from the traditional "stand-up comic releases a DVD" format, involving a plot in which Vegas loses his comedy "mojo" and has to track it down via a journey of personal discovery. The DVD also features footage of Vegas' actual standup set as additional extras.

In 2004, Lee returned to stand-up comedy^[16] with the show Standup Comedian, which earned him a "Tap Water Award" in Edinburgh and was released on DVD in October 2005. This features extra footage of performances from his earlier career on Five's "Comedy Network". This show was toured extensively throughout the UK, Australia and US. Reviewing the comedy of the decade, Dominic Maxwell in The Times wrote of Lee's 2004 return to stand-up that it was "one of the boldest, smartest, most technically assured hours of stand-up I've ever seen".^[2]

[edit] 2005: Jerry Springer The Opera and 90s Comedian

Jerry Springer – The Opera at the Cambridge Theatre in London

In January 2005, Jerry Springer - The Opera, a satirical musical/opera based upon The Jerry Springer Show, was broadcast on BBC Two, following a highly successful West End run for several years, and as a prelude to the show's UK Tour. Christian Voice led a number of protest groups who claimed that the show was blasphemous and highly offensive. In particular, they were angered by the portrayal of Jesus Christ. Disputes arose, with supporters claiming that most of the protesters had neither seen the show nor knew of its actual content. Others supported the right to freedom of speech. Several Christian groups protested at some of the venues used during the UK Tour. The show was broadcast with a record number of complaints prior to its transmission. In total, the BBC received 55,000 complaints.^[17] A private court case brought by Christian Voice against Lee and others involved with the production for blasphemy was rejected by a Magistrates' Court.

In 2005, Lee tackled the subject of the religious hatred he experienced after the broadcast of Jerry Springer – The Opera in his stand-up show, 90s Comedian. This show has earned him some of the best reviews of his career, largely due to the un-checked vitriol he unleashes in the latter half of the set, "taking no prisoners" in his attempt to display what he claimed was the lunacy of sacred cows. A recording was made in Cardiff in March 2006. This was filmed by a group of amateur enthusiasts who were disappointed that there was no distribution deal in place because of the commercial failure of the Standup Comedian DVD and the controversial nature of the new show's material. These "enthusiastic amateurs" became GoFasterStripe^[18] and, having set themselves up in order to film the show, have gone on to film the works of many other "non-mainstream" comedians, including sets from Tony Law (Lee's support act on the 2009 If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One tour), Simon Munnery (whose BBC television comedy series -Attention Scum - was directed by Lee) and several by Lee's former partner Richard Herring.

[edit] 2006: What Would Judas Do?

Many assumed Lee would bring a new hour of stand up to Edinburgh in 2006 to consolidate his "comeback" success, but he did not. Implying that it might have happened under different circumstances, he commented at the time on his website that, "I assumed I was going to be working out 6 half hours of stand-up for a TV project but it fell through". However, he did visit the festival as director of a production of the Eric Bogosian play Talk Radio with a cast which included Phil Nichol, Mike McShane, Will Adamsdale, Stephen K Amos and Tony Law.

In 2006, in addition to his directorial contribution to Talk Radio, he gigged regularly and appeared on television and radio, in – amongst others – Armando Iannucci's Time Trumpet, as a version of himself thirty years in the future looking back and commentating on the present day. The show ran on BBC2 between August & 6 September 2006. Also in August, Lee presented a programme in the Five series Don't Get Me Started. The documentary discussed the issues of blasphemy, free speech, religious censorship and the rise in protests from religious groups over perceived attacks on their faith. This was an area of interest to Lee, following the Jerry Springer -The Opera controversy (see above). The programme was renamed from New Puritans to Stewart Lee Says What's So Bad About Blasphemy? without Lee's prior knowledge.^[15](p234)

He separated from his long standing management company, Avalon, after a promised BBC series fell through (and because of a loss of trust resulting in part from incidents such as the retitling of the blasphemy documentary),^{[15](pp228–236)[19]} and appeared on the BBC Radio 4 quiz Quote Unquote, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and on Have I Got News for You, purportedly to pay for his wedding.^[20][21]

[edit] 2007: Stewart Lee – 41st Best Stand Up Ever!

Stewart Lee presented and organised Resofit, a benefit for Resonance FM.

January saw Lee open his show What Would Judas Do in a double bill with Mark Ravenhill's Product: World Remix at London's Bush Theatre.^[22] He announced at the time that he was also writing – with Tony Law - a sitcom pilot about the god Thor, for BBC Two, and script-editing another pilot, a sitcom about the Brontë sisters.^[23] In February, he organised a tribute to cult comedian Ted Chippington entitled "Tedstock" at London's Bloomsbury Theatre. This was designed, in part, to raise money to fund a CD release of Chippington's work – which was available to buy on the night - entitled "Walking Down The Road". The show included a one-off performance from Lee and Herring, along with fellow Ted fans Simon Munnery, The Nightingales, Phill Jupitus, Josie Long and Stephen Carlin.

Lee's first new stand up show since "90s Comedian" was developed over the first half of 2007. In March 2007, Lee was named 41st best stand-up of all time in a Channel 4 survey listing the "100 best standups". In this poll, he beat Dave Allen, George Carlin, Steve Martin, Robin Williams and Tommy Cooper. Channel 4 did not reveal exactly how the voting was conducted, but 150,000 members of the public were polled, as were an undisclosed number of experts.^{[citation needed]}

2008[link]

At the Edinburgh Festival in 2008 Lee performed potential material for his recently announced BBC2 series, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, in a work in progress show at The Stand, billed as Scrambled Egg. Over the three weeks of the festival, Lee worked on a large quantity of new material, and updated old favourites for possible inclusion in the show, which began filming the following November. A follow up to Johnson & Boswell also aired, again featuring Munnery & Jupp. Elizabeth & Raleigh, Late But Live was featured at the festival before touring the country in the autumn. In November, Lee began filming for his 2009 TV show, and on the 16th November, reunited with Herring another one off performance of their old double act at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith during one of the gigs Richard Herring curated there. They were joined by Paul Putner in character as the Curious Orange. With initial filming out of the way, Scrambled Egg was reprised at London's Hen & Chickens Theatre in December to fully polish the stand up sections of the forthcoming TV project ahead of filming in January 2009.

[edit] 2009: Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle and If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask for One

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, a new six part comedy series featuring standup and sketches, began a six episode run on 16 March 2009. The executive producer was Armando Iannucci and the script editor was Chris Morris.^[24] The first episode received positive reviews from The Independent^[25] and The Daily Mirror.^[26] The show received a negative review in Time Out, written by Lee himself, in which he described himself as "fat" and his performance as "positively Neanderthal, suggesting a jungle-dwelling pygmy, struggling to coax notes out of a clarinet that has fallen from a passing aircraft".^[27] The Guardian named Comedy Vehicle as one of its top ten television highlights of 2009, commenting that it "was the kind of TV that makes you feel like you're not the only one wondering how we came to be surrounded by so much unquestioned mediocrity".^[28] One of the show's few negative reviews came in the Sunday Mercury, which stated: "His whole tone is one of complete, smug condescension".^[29] Lee subsequently used this line to advertise his next stand-up tour.^[30] Lee frequently uses negative reviews on his posters in order to put off potential audience members who are unlikely to be fans of his comedy style.^[31]

The first episode was watched by approximately 1 million viewers,^[32] though the figure rose by 25% when BBC iPlayer viewings were factored in and, uncharacteristically, viewing figures rose over the series.^[33] The series was the BBC's second most downloaded broadcast during its run. In May 2010, the series was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for best comedy programme.^[34]

Lee also had a show at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, named Stewart Lee: If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask for One in which he performed his own version of the song "Galway Girl".^[35] In the Galway stage of this show Sharon Shannon performed the song with Lee. In December 2009 Lee was beaten to the title of Best Live Stand-Up by the comedian Michael McIntyre at the British Comedy Awards ceremony.^[36][37]

Lee caused controversy on his If You Prefer a Milder Comedian tour with a routine about Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond. Referring to Hammond's accident while filming in 2006, in which he was almost killed, Lee joked, "I wish he had been decapitated and that his head had rolled off in front of his wife".^[10] The Daily Mail termed this an "extraordinary attack"^[38] and, having been doorstepped by a Mail journalist, Lee replied "It's a joke, just like on Top Gear when they do their jokes".^[39] Lee subsequently explained the joke:

The idea of what's acceptable and what's shocking, that's where I investigate. I mean, you can't be on Top Gear, where your only argument is that it's all just a joke and anyone who takes offence is an example of political correctness gone mad, and then not accept the counterbalance to that. Put simply, if Clarkson can say the prime minister is a one-eyed Scottish idiot, then I can say that I hope his children go blind.

—Stewart Lee^[10]

In an Observer interview, Sean O'Hagan says of the Hammond joke that Lee "operates out in that dangerous hinterland between moral provocation and outright offence, often adopting, as in this instance, the tactics of those he targets in order to highlight their hypocrisy".^[10]

[edit] 2010: Vegetable Stew

On 4 January, Lee appeared on Celebrity Mastermind, with jazz-improv guitarist Derek Bailey as his special subject, winning with 26 points^[40] in aid of the Motor Neurone Disease Association.^[41] On the 9th of February, Armando Iannucci, the executive producer of the first series of Comedy Vehicle, announced that there would be a second series of the show.^[42] On 10 April an updated version of The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups was broadcast on Channel 4, in which Lee was declared the 12th best stand-up comedian.^[43] The May Day weekend saw Lee curating a programme of free jazz at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, at the invitation of festival director Tony Dudley-Evans.^[44][45]

Lee's second book, How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian, was published by Faber and Faber on 5 August 2010.^[46][47] The book features annotated transcripts of Lee's Stand-Up Comedian, '90s Comedian and 41st Best Stand-Up Ever shows and has received positive reviews.^{[48][49][50][51][52]} It is dedicated to Ted Chippington.^[15]

Lee's 2010 Edinburgh Fringe show is entitled Vegetable Stew.^[53] Prior to the start of the festival, Lee wrote an e-mail to the publicist of the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards, copying in other comedians, in response to the announcement of a poll to find the public's favourite act from 30 years of the award, which was previously known as the Perrier Award. Lee wrote:

Think about the logic of it for a moment. Who among those you are asking to vote has even heard of Frank Chickens, who for all anyone under 30 knows may be the best act on the list? It is not possible for the outcome of this vote to have any credibility.^[54]

As result of his e-mail going viral with the encouragement of Richard Herring and Robin Ince, Frank Chickens took the lead in the poll.^[55] During the polling, Lee wrote that: "In my e-mail I chose at random Frank Chickens, the Japanese female performance art duo, as an example of possibly worthy winners who would not get a look-in under this illogical and unfair voting system, and the Twitter world has adopted them as a cause". He stated that it was never his intention to influence the vote, "but they are now leading the field, and it appears we should embrace them. If Frank Chickens become Comedy Gods then Foster's will have been helped to actually sponsor some actual art, and fans of Foster's all over the whole world will be made aware of that wonderful, indefinable, mischievous, playful thing we call the Spirit Of The Fringe!".^[56] Frank Chickens went on to win the public vote.^[57] As a result of the Frank Chickens incident, Lee was awarded the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt award for best publicity stunt at the Fringe. The award's organisers stated: "The fact that Stewart did not intend to unleash publicity does not negate his success".^[58]

[edit] 2011–2012: Carpet Remnant World

A new live show, originally running in London in late 2011 and then as a touring show in the UK through August 2012.^[59][60][61] A live DVD edited from 2 performances in Sheffield has an announced release date of 12 November 2012.

Selected works[link]

Books[link]

• Fist of Fun (with Richard Herring; non-fiction) BBC Books, 1995. ISBN 0-563-37185-4; ISBN 978-0-563-37185-4
• The Perfect Fool (novel) Fourth Estate, 2001. ISBN 1-84115-365-6; ISBN 978-1-84115-365-0
• Sit-Down Comedy (contributor to anthology, ed Malcolm Hardee & John Fleming) Ebury Press/Random House, 2003. ISBN 0-09-188924-3; ISBN 978-0-09-188924-1
• More Trees to Climb by Ben Moor (foreword)
• Death To Trad Rock by John Robb (foreword) Cherry Red
• The Wire Primers: A Guide to Modern Music (chapter on The Fall)
• How I Escaped My Certain Fate - The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian Faber & Faber 2010 ISBN 0-571-25480-2
• The 'If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One' EP Faber & Faber 2012 ISBN 978-0-571-27984-5
• TV Comedian (to be published Summer 2012)

DVDs[link]

• Stand Up Comedian [2005] (2|entertain)
• 90s Comedian [2006] (Go Faster Stripe)
• 41st Best Stand Up Ever [2008] (Real Talent)
• Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle [2009] (2|entertain)
• If You Prefer A Milder Comedian Please Ask For One [2010] [Comedy Central]

CDs[link]

• 90s Comedian [2007] (Go Faster Stripe, digital-only release)
• Pea Green Boat [2007] (Go Faster Stripe, also 10" vinyl)
• 41st Best Stand Up Ever [2008] (Real Talent)
• What Would Judas Do? [2009] (Go Faster Stripe, 3-CD box set)
• The Jazz Cellar Tape [2011] (Go Faster Stripe, CD)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Stewart Lee

• Official website
• Stewart Lee biography at Debi Allen Associates
• Unofficial Lee and Herring website

Loreena McKennitt
Background information
Birth name	Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt
Born	(1957-02-17) 17 February 1957 (age 55) Morden, Manitoba, Canada
Origin	Stratford, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Celtic, world, New Age
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Voice, piano, harp, accordion
Years active	1985–present
Labels	Quinlan Road, Warner Bros., Verve Forecast/Universal
Website	quinlanroad.com

Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is known for her refined, clear soprano vocals.^[1] She has sold more than 14 million records worldwide.^[2]

Early life[link]

McKennitt was born in Morden, Manitoba of Irish and Scottish descent to parents Jack (died 1992; a livestock dealer) and Irene McKennitt (1931-2011; a nurse). She moved to Stratford, Ontario in 1981, where she still resides.

When Loreena was young she wanted to become a veterinarian but she found that music chose her rather than she it.^[3] Developing a passion for Celtic music, she learned to play the Celtic harp and began busking at various places, including St. Lawrence Market in Toronto in order to earn money to record her first album.^[4]

Career[link]

McKennitt's first album, Elemental, was released in 1985, followed by To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987), Parallel Dreams (1989), The Visit (1991), The Mask and Mirror (1994), A Winter Garden (1995), The Book of Secrets (1997), An Ancient Muse (2006), A Midwinter Night’s Dream (2008), and The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2010). All of her work is released under her own label, Quinlan Road.

In 1990, McKennitt provided the music for the National Film Board of Canada documentary The Burning Times, a feminist revisionist account of the Early Modern European witchcraft trials. The main theme would later be rerecorded by her and her band and called "Tango to Evora", a track that appears on her album The Visit.

In 1993, she toured Europe supporting Mike Oldfield. In 1995, her version of the traditional Irish song "Bonny Portmore" was featured in the Highlander series. McKennitt's single "The Mummers' Dance" received airplay in North American markets during the spring of 1997, and was used as the theme song for the short-lived TV series Legacy. It also saw use in the trailer for a wide-release 1998 Drew Barrymore film Ever After.^[5]

Her music appeared in the movies The Santa Clause, Soldier, Jade, Holy Man, The Mists of Avalon and Tinkerbell; and in the television series Roar, Due South, and Full Circle (Women and Spirituality).

Personal life[link]

In 1998, McKennitt's fiancé Ronald Rees, his brother Richard and their close friend Gregory Cook drowned during a boating accident on Georgian Bay. She was deeply affected by the event and subsequently founded the Cook-Rees Memorial Fund for Water Search and Safety in the same year.

At the time of the incident, she was working on a live album of two performances called Live in Paris and Toronto. The proceeds from this album were donated to the newly created memorial fund, totaling some three million dollars.^[6] After the release of the live album, McKennitt decided to substantially reduce the number of her public performances and did not release any new recordings until the studio album An Ancient Muse in 2006.

Honours[link]

• Juno Award, Best Roots/Traditional Album 1992, for The Visit.
• Juno Award, Best Roots/Traditional Album 1994, for The Mask and Mirror.
• Billboard Music Award for International Achievement, 1997.
• Headline performer for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at The Golden Jubilee Celebrations, Province of Manitoba, 2002.
• Honorary Doctor of Letters, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2002.
• Member of the Order of Manitoba, July 2003.
• Member of the Order of Canada, July 2004.
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Manitoba, June 2005
• Canadian Ambassador, Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennary, June 2005
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Queen's University, October 2005
• Investiture as Honorary Colonel, 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, December 2006
• Nominated for a Grammy award, Best Contemporary World Music Album, in 2007
• Western Canadian Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, September 2009
• Performed at Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Opening Ceremonies, February 12, 2010
• Honorary Bachelor of Applied Business, George Brown College, June 2010

Genre and work[link]

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McKennitt's music has generally been classified as World / Celtic music even though it contains aspects and characteristics of music from around the globe and is sometimes classified as Folk music in record stores.^{[citation needed]}

Before McKennitt composes any music, she engages in considerable research on a specific subject which then forms the general concept of the album.^{[citation needed]} Before creating Elemental and Parallel Dreams, she traveled to Ireland for inspiration from the country's history, folklore, geography and culture. The album The Mask and Mirror was preceded by research in Spain where she engaged in studying Galicia, a Celtic section of Spain, along with its abundant Arabic roots.^{[citation needed]} The result was an album that included elements of Celtic and Arabic music. According to the jacket notes, her album An Ancient Muse was inspired by travels among and reading about the various cultures along the Silk Road.

McKennitt is compared to Enya,^{[citation needed]} but McKennitt's music is more grounded in traditional and classical invocations,^{[citation needed]} using literary works as sources of lyrics and springboards for interpretation such as "The Lady of Shalott" by Lord Tennyson, "Prospero's Speech" (the final soliloquy in William Shakespeare's The Tempest), "Snow" by Archibald Lampman, "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross, Dante's Inferno, William Blake's "Lullaby", Yeats' "The Stolen Child", "The English Ladye and the Knight" by Sir Walter Scott and "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes.

Court case[link]

In 2005, McKennitt was involved in an acrimonious court case in Britain when her former friend and employee, Niema Ash, published a book that contained intimate details of their friendship. McKennitt argued that much of the book contained confidential personal information that Ash had no right to publish. The British courts found that there had indeed been a breach of confidence and a misuse of McKennitt's private information, and the case is likely to set important precedents in British law on the privacy of celebrities.^[7] The House of Lords affirmed the lower court's decisions in 2007.

2006 and later[link]

In September 2006, McKennitt performed live at the Alhambra. The performance premiered on PBS and in August 2007 was released on a three-disc DVD/CD set titled Nights from the Alhambra.

In 2008, McKennitt wrote and composed a song she titled "To The Fairies They Draw Near" as the theme song for Disney's direct-to-video animated film Tinker Bell. She also provided the narration for the film.^[8]

In early 2008, she returned to Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios to record A Midwinter Night’s Dream, an extended version of her 1995 mini-album A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season. The album was released on October 28, 2008.^[9]

Since the release of An Ancient Muse, Loreena has toured consistently, with a European and North American tour in the spring of 2007, an extensive cross Canada and United States tour in the fall of 2007, a summer tour of Europe in 2008 and a Mediterranean tour in the summer of 2009 with stops in Greece,^[10] Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Hungary and Italy.

On September 17, 2009, McKennitt announced that she planned to release a two-disc album titled "A Mediterranean Odyssey" in the fall of 2009. The first CD, "From Istanbul to Athens," consisted of ten new live recordings made during McKennitt’s 2009 Mediterranean Tour, including songs she had never before recorded in concert. The second CD, "The Olive and the Cedar," had a Mediterranean theme which McKennitt herself curated. It contained previously released studio recordings created between the years of 1994 and 2006.

November 16, 2010 saw the US release (November 12 for Europe) of McKennitt's latest studio album, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley." Recorded at the Sharon Temple, Ontario, it consists of nine traditional Celtic songs. "Every once and again there is a pull to return to one's own roots or beginnings, with the perspective of time and experience, to feel the familiar things you once loved and love still," says Loreena.

Documentaries[link]

Late in the 1990s, McKennitt created No Journey's End, a half-hour documentary, for American television. In it, she discussed the influences behind her music. No Journey's End contained excerpts from several songs from the albums Parallel Dreams, The Visit, and The Mask and Mirror. It also shows live performances of the songs "The Lady of Shalott," "Santiago," and "The Dark Night of the Soul." It was later released on DVD and VHS, the former also containing music videos for "The Mummers' Dance" and "The Bonny Swans." A bonus copy of the DVD was included with the 2004 remastered versions of McKennitt's CDs.

In 2008, Loreena released A Moveable Musical Feast, based on her 2007 An Ancient Muse tour. The DVD included interviews with Loreena, her band, crew, fans and professional colleagues from the Canadian music industry.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

Compilations[link]

EPs[link]

Boxed sets[link]

• The Journey Begins (2008)

Singles[link]

Videos[link]

• H.M.S. Pinafore Live performance recorded during the 1981 Stratford Festival in Stratford Ontario, Canada, starring Michael Burgess, Katherine Terrell, Eric Donkin, Kenneth Pearl, Jim White, et al.; Loreena McKennitt performed in the chorus. (CBC VHS 1986)
• The Mummers' Dance (1997)
• The Bonny Swans
• Nights from the Alhambra (2007, Live concert in Spain premiered on PBS)^[22]
• A Moveable Musical Feast (2008, A tour documentary from Loreena's 2007 North American Tour)^[22]

Other[link]

• No Journey’s End (half-hour profile, aired on PBS; DVD)
• Heaven on Earth (TV Movie 1987 - played "Lady Traveler")
• Highlander III (Soundtrack contribution)
• The Santa Clause (Soundtrack contribution, "The Bells of Christmas")
• Léolo (Soundtrack contribution)
• Una casa con vista al mar (Soundtrack contribution)
• The Mists Of Avalon (Soundtrack use)
• The Burning Times (Soundtrack contribution)
• Due South (Soundtrack use)
• Northern Exposure (Soundtrack use)
• Tinker Bell (Direct to DVD movie, 2008 - Narrator)
• Soldier (Soundtrack use)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Loreena McKennitt

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Loreena McKennitt

• Official website
• Loreena McKennitt interview from the echoes public radio show