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STAND-UP JOE LYCETT O2 Academy, Glasgow, Tue 12 Jun
That Joe Lycett is a proper name-dropper. ‘I said to Sarah Millican that I felt I had to write a show that was suited for bigger venues and, in her infinite wisdom, she said “no, the show should be good enough for 100 people in Hartlepool”.’ Point taken, Lycett has been doing his utmost across the nation with I’m About to Lose Control and I Think Joe Lycett (he loves a dodgy pun for his show titles does our Joe). ‘You can’t go too far wrong with the Pointer Sisters,’ he insists.
‘James Acaster [there he goes again] suggested that I go the whole hog and choose I’m So Joe Lycett, and I Just Joe Lycett, I’m About to Lose Control and I Think Joe Lycett. There was another long one that was a strong contender but then I listened to the Pointer Sisters song and thought “can I walk on feeling confident to this music? Well, yes I can!” So we named the tour after that.’ In terms of the actual content of his show, Lycett rejects the
notion of a fixed theme and instead is riffing on bizarre and funny stuff that’s happened to him in the last couple of years. ‘I’m not that sort of writer where I can restrict myself to a theme, just in case nothing good comes of it,’ he admits. ‘I prefer to get annoyed about stuff and then maybe spot loose themes that tie together. One curious pickle he got himself into involved the head office of a financial establishment which took exception to a slice of on-the- spot Joe japes featuring a friend who worked in a bank’s building, a security pass and a ridiculous made-up name. “It’s fascinating, because this bank went back through all my tweets and Instagram posts to check if I had done something similar in the past. Who knew that a massive bank would have a sense of humour failure? So, I want to make a point about banks and power and the way they mould us into what they want us to be.’
Not to give away too much but there’s a video where you can hear Daley [Tom, the Olympic diver . . . ] in the background talking about “the Lycett situation” which relates to some trolling I’d been doing on Instagram. For a while I thought about calling the show The Lycett Situation. I quite like the idea that I’m a situation.’ (Brian Donaldson)
We know where you’ll be this summer
#intotheunknown 1 Feb–31 Mar 2018 THE LIST 79 1 Jun–31 Aug 2018 THE LIST 79