Late Night Lycett

So, as the name implies, this is a late night variety show hosted by comedian Joe Lycett in a studio in Birmingham. It's in the slot where The Last Leg normally is on Channel 4, at 10:00pm.

I'll be honest, Lycett is one of the comedians I can take more than most. He CAN be funny, although he does engage in the same dirty humour that most comedians use. Yes, he swears a lot and so does this show, but he mostly puts the focus on comedy towards being twisted and wacky at times. And aside from this show, Lycett is quite a crazy person himself, if you've seen from his marketing stunts and whatnot.

Alright, the whole concept is similar to that of TFI Friday. There are many segments written by Lycett but, as I said in the title, they fall flat. One of them spoofs GB News, which seems like a genius move considering it's a disaster of a network, but nope - it just had to be underwhelming. I don't need to explain, but it just is! When the show isn't being the same vulgar jokes you hear on other comedy shows, it does bring in some funny gags. Katherine Ryan's running gag in Series 1 where she never gets to be on the show shows off Lycett's power to be wacky and slapsticky.

The guests on the show are normally people from the LGBT+ scene. This brings in quite a wide variety of people of various types. However, there are other guests as well, so there is a wide variety. At least it doesn't exclusively feature comedians.

Overall, Late Night Lycett is a let down of a show, but the good points prevent it from being a very bad programme. It's surely better than Smart TV and other panel shows I've watched, which try too hard to be edgy for the sake of being on pay TV.

Only watched this because Chris Packham was a guest and ended up embarrassed for Chris and for the other guests as well. All guests smiled their way through and did their best but it was excrutiating. It does give TFI Friday vibes because it's attempting the same chaotic fun but this show is puerile without reason and with a very low attention span - each segment is short and whips to something else before you really work out what the point is. I spent the whole thing wondering what on earth the crowd are finding to cheer about? Why are the crowd so happy? Nothing much is happening. I do love the idea of the GB News parody, but it isn't done very well. I think this show would improve with a bit more political bite and interesting chat, and less pointless fluff, but maybe that's just me.

Anyone claiming this is the 'new TFI Friday' or 'Big Breakfast' clearly wasn't around in the 90s. What we have here is an hour of self indulgent laugh free crass that deserves to be confined to televisual history. Lycett surrounds himself with a bunch of oddball sycophantic nobodies and indulges in his own weak puerile sense of humour for an hour long snooze fest. I long for the days of TFI Friday which at least was original and edgy in a good way given its timeslot. What Lycett's been handed is a late night licence to explore his self infatuated persona and inflict it on an unsuspecting generation with nothing better to compare it to. Give it a miss, you're won't regret it.

Joe Lycett is always hilarious and the "Richard Yewtree" sections are the funniest. A proper scream. Suspect it's a little too close to the media diet of those who gave 1 star.

Really nice that it's highlighting talent in Birmingham too. Don One is a great drag king and I wasn't familiar with the fabulous Yshee Black. Great celebration of the rainbow of Britishness too - unapologetically camp and wonderful. Just as Friday nights should be. Hope Channel 4 keep making it as it's a great reason to stay in on a Friday and snuggle with my cat and dog. Not sure what else to say here other than yay!

Joe Lycett the comedian can sometimes be reasonably funny - though, let's be honest, his act is essentially a watered-down version of Julian Clary's from thirty years ago - but as a 'political' and 'social' commentator he is painfully one-note and predictable. The problem is that his elevation to some kind of figurehead status by Guardian-readers for his oh-so-brave takedowns of the softest of soft targets (like Liz Truss and David Beckham, i.e. People who pretty much no one defends) seems to have gone to his head. Thus, he seems to believe that throwing out any random jibe that sounds a bit contemporary - look at me, I mentioned Twitter! - is enough to make a comment bitingly satirical, when it is usually anything but.

In the case of this programme, he is desperately in need of better writers. The interviews themselves were mediocre enough, but the nadir came with the attempt to parody GB News, an excruciatingly ill-rehearsed and poorly written effort in which Lycett simply couldn't land a successful joke, however much mugging to camera he tried. His cohost in this segment, Alan Carr, at least had the decency to look bewildered and embarrassed by the whole thing.

Satire (and comedy) really has fallen a long way since the golden age of alternative comedy in the 1980s - agree with them or not, but Alexei Sayle, the Comic Strip team, even Ben Elton in his prime, were simply so much funnier.

EDIT: I seem to have upset another reviewer (Lycett's agent?) as you can see in one of the other reviews. Flattered to be acknowledged! Just one point in reply: it's a useful rule of thumb that the more hysterically an audience is laughing in a TV studio, the less funny a show usually is. Those of us at home - not drunk, high, or being whipped up by the show's producers - are generally much better placed to judge.