When Mark Thomas engages in activist comedy, he won’t be satisfied until laws are revoked or politicians’ heads roll. For Joe Lycett, it’s fine if he gets a few retweets or if the branch manager of the local bank gets the slight hump. A rage for change isn’t what powers panel show regular Lycett: you’d have a job finding a comic happier with himself and how things are. Pottering away in his home in a suburb of Birmingham, he craves no greater impact than to make people laugh, pester killjoys and lay bare how bad guys aren’t just bad, but usually humourless, too.
And he does it really well. If one marker of good comedy is making it seem effortless – not an artifice at all, just a naturally funny person chatting from the stage – then Lycett is among the best we’ve got. In his touring show, he has nothing urgent to communicate and few jokes, while his routines rarely seem to go anywhere. But he’ll have you chuckling near-constantly with perky tales of setting up in aspirational Kings Heath, pranks sprung on him by his schoolfriend Peter and by his various juvenile online tricks to peeve the slightly powerful or bring down scoundrels by a peg or two.
At one stage, advising his mum’s friend how best to engage with trans people, he hymns curiosity: enjoy listening to what other people say about themselves. It’s a key to Lycett’s craft. He inhabits a small world – trips to Moseley post office and Black Country speed awareness courses; a tight circle of family and friends; lots of time on his hands. But by looking, listening, being alert to the infinite quirkiness of everyone else’s experiences and expressions, he makes those narrow horizons teem with possibility and comic life.
And so, many of tonight’s laughs are at things other people have written or said; Lycett just reports them back, then repeats the funny bits with an incredulous yelp. At its most pedestrian, that means reciting smutty tweets posted by his audience. Elsewhere, there are screengrabs of stuff he’s found or done on the internet. He’s hardly alone in bringing that content to the stage, but, such is his glee, it never feels dutiful. You’d guess Lycett would be up to this mischief whether he were a professional comedian or not.
And not out of great passion, but just because he can. The only section of the show that implies political conviction concerns Tom Daley’s Barclays-sponsored presence at Pride 2017. Lycett finds this contrary to the spirit of Pride, and makes the point, as impishly as ever, on social media. That sets up an on-stage homily about celebrating sexual and gender difference, and all those complex identities that high-street banks might be less keen to sponsor. (Lycett himself identifies as pansexual.) It’s a good point, well made. But it also feels like post-rationalising - because Lycett, you sense, was drawn to trolling Daley like a moth to cashmere. It’s the gadfly reflex, compelling him to tickle pomposity wherever he finds it. As a later stunt makes clear, when our host locks horns with RBS over a preposterous forged ID, Lycett’s politics are personal. If you don’t have a sense of humour, if you deny playfulness or stifle fun, you’re fair game. His show celebrates that whimsical micro-activism – and slips down very easily while it does so.
• At Stafford Gatehouse, on 5 April. Box office: 01785 619080. Then touring until 30 November.
