When news broke last week that comedian Joe Lycett had been reported to the police for a routine in his touring show, the joke was very much on the offended punter. “Imagine someone calling the police over a joke they didn’t like? Snowflakes everywhere,” tweeted Lycett’s fellow comic Janey Godley, while the Spectator fulminated: “We need to kick the cops out of comedy.” But where there’s comedy, cops have seldom been far away. Trace their interactions over the years, and you find the art form sharpening its rebellious self-image, but also its role as a lightning rod for social anxieties. You’ll find a few sense of humour failures, too.
Lycett has yet to reveal which particular joke prompted police interest. But my guess is it’s the home video he screens onstage of his childhood self, frolicking half-naked. Because images of child nudity are illegal, Lycett tells his audience, he has concealed his private parts in the film with a disproportionately large digital penis – or a “giant donkey dick”, as reported in last week’s coverage. It’s a cheerfully puerile visual gag, if not an obviously offensive one. But can we be surprised – after the recent furore around theatre production The Family Sex Show, for example – that there are people who might find Lycett’s priapic tot too hot to handle?
