Joe Lycett / Picture: Matt Crockett

★★★★★

One of the BBC’s stranger decisions in recent years was to effectively cancel Watchdog, its long-running consumer affairs show. Luckily, just six months prior, comedian Joe Lycett successfully launched his own Channel 4 show Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back, a bold, brash and darkly humorous alternative featuring showbiz guests and assistance in the form of uber-droll comedian Mark Silcox. Lycett has used this outlet to perform a number of audacious, headline-grabbing stunts, most famously changing his name to Hugo Boss in protest against their litigious threats to a tiny Welsh brewery called Boss Brewing. In short, Joe Lycett is a comedian with a conscience.

More, More, More!… kicks off with a veritable barrage of ribald humour that’s relentless and breath-taking to behold. ‘I do get the [Great British] Sewing Bee people in,’ he worries before launching into an eye-watering gag that seriously tests the boundaries of taste and almost brings the house down. This is his first tour since covid and he’s clearly enthralled to be back on stage, triumphantly presenting his recent escapades on social media where he’s been trolling luminaries such as Boris Johnson, Alan Sugar and Nadine Dorries.

Lycett claims that he’s driven by petty grievances and it’s one such slur – mitigated by the advice of a charming epigram from fellow comedian Josie Long – that propels the core of this show. While he’s prone to puncturing sincerity with a gag and he pretends that his escapades are driven by entirely selfish motives, Lycett’s aims are pure and his methods are audacious and brave. It’s a testament to his commitment that he’s been working diligently on this material for three long years and the catharsis of its performance is palpable. More, More, More!… is a superbly constructed show from an astonishingly self-assured comedian with a very big heart.

Joe Lycett: More, More, More! How Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett? is on tour until Friday 23 September; reviewed at Edinburgh Playhouse.