"It's not a case of one-to-watch, more like when-to-watch". Stevie Martin reviews promising young stand-up Joe Lycett.
It's very rare you get a debut hour this confident and well-executed. 24-year-old Joe Lycett was 'Chortle Student Comedian of the Year' in 2009, has been on Chris Addison's Show and Tell and BBC quiz show Epic Win as well as your traditional 8 out of 10 Cats etc etc, but this is not your average young comedian.
In fact, it's as if he's been doing this for ten years – and not just because his audience banter, delivery and ease behind a mic is that of a much older stand-up; it's as if he's been dropped straight from a Carry On film. No one does it quite like him – current observations about life, his lack of masculinity and his penchant for letter writing delivered in the camped-up tone of a 1950's Blackpool entertainer. But he's lovely, and warm and while he's a little too interested in the audience (we haven't paid a tenner to listen to them speak), his musings are framed by a barrage of witty, intelligent turns of phrase. His ability to tranform a fairly standard gag into something heightened using his vocabulary and the rhythm of a sentence makes for a consistently entertaining hour.
Sure, some of his material doesn't quite match his accomplished performance, sometimes obviously forgoing reality for the sake of a cheap laugh – a driving instructor anecdote certainly goes this way – but after every miss, comes a hit. Especially involving his hobby for unnecessary correspondence, something he does when bored. Whether writing letters to the council re: parking fines, entering into an inadvisable dialogue with an email heckler or tweeting a company "a few thousand times", these make up the strongest sections of the show.
Not to say his observations aren't witty, but they do occasionally fall short of the expectation he's put on himself by being so bloody funny; relying too heavily on, for numerous examples, someone shitting themselves, him shitting himself, or the person in questions getting their cock out.
Sound too filthy? This is where his camped-up, cheerily charming Enid Blyton Famous Five-esque voice kicks into action; not only is it rather lovely to listen to, but it seems to soften every crude gag. The beginning of the show, a routine entirely about his own penis, is nothing thanks to his lilting, singsong rhythms.
The only thing belying this as a first Fringe hour is the patchiness of the writing –everything else is fully formed and ready to go. It's not a case of one-to-watch, more like when-to-watch; there's absolutely no doubt he's already TV ready and it's only a matter of time before he's taking over some sort of panel show. But hopefully also coming back next year with some stronger observations from which to spring from.
Stevie Martin
Joe Lycett: Some Lycett Hot is at the Pleasance Courtyard at 8:30pm until 26th August
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