Review: Joe Lycett – If Joe Lycett Then You Should’ve Put A Ring On It (2014)
Yesterday evening, I finally got t
o see Joe Lycett’s show If Joe Lycett Then You Should’ve Put A Ring On It after waiting for such a long time. I saw him last month at a comedy night but we only got to see a limited set due to there being other comedians there.
Joe’s set was basically an extended version of the set I saw at the Comedy Hut but was just as funny, if not funnier the second time around. The show featured many of his famous letters of complaint that he had sent out to various companies (this was one of my favourite parts of the show) which were delivered in Joe’s brilliantly exaggerated manner and this is what really ‘makes’ them. The way these complaints were so pedantic and utterly self-indulgent is why they are fantastic- it reminds me a bit of Rich Fulcher’s book: Tiny Acts Of Rebellion which is full of silly but hilarious ways to break the rules of society. He also featured hate mail that he had received which was funny in the same way, and the insults were so imaginative, you can’t help but applaud the guy who sent them.
There was a big focus on homophobia but not in a heavy, rally kind of way, just in the sense that comedy addresses things that are often very serious but adds a lighter slant to them. (For example, Paul Foot talks about the levels of homophobia in his jokes called ‘Disturbances’.) There was a great game Joe played with the audience where we had to decide what percentage of ‘gay’ certain things had. Just counting the days until that becomes televised really.
My absolute favourite part, without giving too much away, is Joe’s spirit animal: Walrus. I agree with him that horoscopes etc are rubbish but absolutely love the idea of having a spirit animal like Walrus, he sounds like such a great guy. I’d love to be able to blame my horribleness on a walrus and the way Joe talked about his experience with Walrus had the audience in tears of laughter.