“Memo: don’t put comedians on Question Time or any other serious political show,” tweeted the BBC’s former live politics editor Rob Burley on Sunday morning. “It’s not the time for that nonsense anymore.” Burley was not amused by the standup Joe Lycett’s appearance on the first-ever Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, which the Brummie sent up by pretending to be “incredibly rightwing”. Feigning enthusiastic support for the positions Liz Truss staked out in her interview with Kuenssberg, Lycett had co-panellist Emily Thornberry tittering, and the show’s host on a very uncertain footing, with an appearance that went on to dominate coverage of this launch of the BBC’s major new politics format.
Is that a travesty? Or – as Lycett’s many supporters would have it – a public service? “Here was something genuinely subversive,” in his fellow comedian Katy Brand’s words, “delivered so politely you could barely feel the blade until it was out.” The dividing lines were drawn, between those who feel that the seriousness of Kuenssberg’s show (at a very serious time) was undermined by Lycett’s prank, and those who see that prank as the most serious and morally responsible feature of the whole hour.
