Deliberate repetition: the art of the callback

I don’t usually begin an article by saying sorry. But I must apologise in advance on this occasion because this will go over the heads of many of you.

It’s not that you’re too stupid for my clever craftsmanship; it’s just that I’m going to analyse a Guardian column by a brilliant comedian whose deadpan routines and writing just aren’t everyone’s cup of very British tea.

The column was written by Stewart Lee back in 2022, after the death of Queen Elizabeth. The reason I’m analysing it is that it’s still stuck in my head after all this time.

And the reason it’s still living rent-free in my brain? The exquisite use of the callback technique.

What is a callback?

Even if the term is new to you, rest assured that you’re very familiar with it. You’ve encountered it many times in film and comedy routines. It often takes the form of a phrase, but can also be a repeating motif or image.

The depleted rum in Pirates of the Caribbean. The “rug that really tied the room together” in The Big Lebowski. “I must not tell lies” in Harry Potter. These are just three popular examples of the callback.

Note that this device isn’t always used for comedic effect.

In the latter example, “I must not tell lies” is first introduced as a punishment inflicted upon the hero by Dolores Umbridge. When the phrase returns, it’s in the context of a comeuppance for the perpetrator.

When the phrase is repeated yet again in another context, it illustrates the villain’s hypocrisy.

But comedy is where the callback is used most often and most effectively. Because every time the phrase or motif returns, it gets funnier due to an extra layer of absurdity. This is how Stewart Lee uses not one but two callbacks in one short article.

Here, I’ll explain why it works so well and how it managed to lodge itself in my brain in an age where most digital content just doesn’t stick.

Stewart Lee’s use of the callback

Context is needed to understand the humour behind the callbacks in Stewart Lee’s column for The Guardian: The BBC axing my show was in very poor taste.

It was published shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, during the national mourning period when broadcasters hastily reshuffled schedules to avoid anything potentially “inappropriate.” Lee’s BBC Two stand-up special Tornado was pulled. The article is ostensibly a complaint about this injustice. What it actually is: a layered performance that reads like a stand-up set in print. And the callback is central to that performance.

Lee uses two distinct callbacks: “I’m joking of course,” and “they are very private people.” Both function as pressure valves - one releasing tension, the other adding a drip-feed of absurdity. Let’s look at them one at a time.

Callback #1: “I’m joking of course.”

This line appears four times in the article. Each time, it acts as a disarming move after a deliberately provocative statement and dares the reader to parse how much of what he said is actually true.

The first use follows a tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theory suggesting that Liz Truss (Prime Minister at the time), who once called for the abolition of the monarchy, may have bumped off the Queen.

Then comes the self-correction: “I’m joking of course.”

The self-correction is the absurdity. The callback signals that you’re meant to recognise a joke when you hear one - especially when it's so far-fetched. But that’s the whole point: we've reached a stage where we're unable to recognise humour.

Every time he uses the phrase, the context gets slightly more serious. Homeless people cleared from Westminster to make way for queuing mourners. Protesters arrested for holding blank signs. Lee preempts moral outrage by suggesting he’s only joking - even as he makes the most politically charged points in the piece. The repetition turns the phrase into a satirical tool: a fake safety net he keeps tossing out after increasingly sharp jabs.

By the time he says it for the fourth time, it’s doing two jobs: undercutting the outrage he knows is coming, and mocking the absurdity of a culture where you have to pre-emptively excuse every line of satire.

Callback #2: “They are very private people.”

This one’s more subtle. It appears twice, both times in reference to the royal family, and both times in deadpan proximity to something completely ludicrous.

First instance: Lee assures readers his show makes no mention of death - apart from a comically exaggerated scene from Sharknado, which he jokes might be offensive if “any members of the royal family have been killed by flying sharks.” Then he adds: “Which they may have been. We don’t know. They are very private people.”

This is a classic Lee move: start with a straight-faced absurdity (royals killed by flying sharks), escalate it beyond parody, and then land it with a line that pretends to play it straight. “They are very private people” is not just a call to royal discretion - it’s a cynical nod to how secrecy and mystique around the monarchy invite all kinds of projections, conspiracies, and mythologising. You can say anything about them, because there’s so little actual information to disprove it.

Second instance: the same line closes the piece. After listing the alleged missteps of the BBC - replacing his single use of the word wank with a film featuring seven sex scenes, four of which involve lesbians (who, Lee mockingly reminds us, “don’t exist” according to Queen Victoria) - he lands the punch with: “But perhaps that’s what the Queen would have wanted. We don’t know. She was a very private person.”

It’s the same joke in form, but now it’s come full circle. The dead Queen, now invoked in a sarcastic justification for editorial decisions involving lesbian sex scenes, becomes the spectral figure haunting the whole narrative, a blank symbol used to rationalise everything - from programming choices to performative reverence. Just like in the opening paragraph.

Why the callback sticks

That’s why it works. Lee doesn’t just repeat a phrase - he re-positions it. Each time, it lands in a new context, deepens the satire and makes the reader feel the circular absurdity of the whole situation. That’s a callback functioning at its highest level: not a throwaway line recycled for laughs, but a structural device that ties the absurd to the political and forces the reader to see the pattern.

Stewart Lee’s column used callbacks as a frame for how to read the entire piece. “I’m joking of course” isn’t just a joke. “They are very private people” isn’t just an aside. These phrases are the ghost in the machine, telling you how the piece thinks, how it wants to be read, and what it wants you to notice.

In a cultural moment filled with carefully hedged statements and faux neutrality, the callback was Lee’s scalpel - and he knew exactly where to cut.