Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet proved that opposites really do attract in the smash hit sitcom. But beyond the bickering and and pranks, there was a romance so special that it changed many fans’ lives

Opposites attract. And spend most of their time arguing. But the love between Cameron and Mitchell Tucker-Pritchett remained strong throughout the 11 years of Modern Family.

The two met at a games night when Mitch rolled his eyes every time Cam “got a little boisterous”. They married in two of the most romantic and near-disastrous TV episodes in living memory and raised two adopted children, Lily and Rexford. Being a groundbreaking gay TV couple came at a price: critics wanted more PDAs and less fighting, but Cam and Mitch’s love shone bright.

After a rocky few decades, the standup is nearing 60 – and finding contentment at last. But what does his grotesque retelling of The Owl and the Pussy-cat tell us about his inability to connect with people?

Stewart Lee is somewhat fretfully tidying his kitchen. Nothing is exactly where he left it two months ago to go on tour. Plus, he says, “I’ve come back with a load of records that need to be alphabetised, and that’s really stressing me out.” His house is miles from minimalist – posters everywhere, for spaghetti westerns, avant-garde Welsh harpists, the Fall (who he said in an interview in 2005 were the love of his life) – but if anything was an inch out of place, he’d notice. He puts things away with theatrical flourish, like a guy doing an impression of a guy who needs things just-so, for the comic effect of how absolutely impossible that guy would be, but at the same time, it’s funny because it’s true.

In the show he’s been away for, Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf, he – a 58-year-old lefty – enters into breakneck dialectic with toxic masculinity in werewolf form (age unknown). “Things have got worse in the 18 months I’ve been doing it,” he says. “I need to really amp the werewolf up. He would be much more explicitly racist and homophobic and transphobic now. But you don’t want people to be really upset in the room.” It feels quite a 2026 dilemma, being unable to even satirise the right without causing the distress it lives for.