2010 Edinburgh Fringe
Joe Lycett & Andrew Ryan review
Joe Lycett and Andrew Ryan are two of the most charming young up-and-coming comedians you could wish to meet. Unlike some of their contemporaries, there's no egos here, no annoying swagger - just nice, well delivered jokes.
Frankly, both of them could easily be charging for people to come and see them by now but for 2010 they've taken on the risk-free and pretty sensible idea of teaming up and presenting An Hour of Humour on the Free Fringe. As Ryan admits in his set, as a result of this arrangement the duo have been able to generate new material and hone their stand-up skills in a relatively safe and pressure-free environment. Not that you'd notice any on-the-job learning as both seem quite at home in the stand-up arena and deliver material like established pros.
Andrew Ryan takes the first half-hour, with the audience instantly warming to his easy-going charm. There's clearly some of the newly generated fresh material mentioned above on display here, as he jokes about some of the things that have happened during the Fringe.
Ryan then moves onto talking about Ryanair - a topic rather exhausted by other comedians already, but thankfully he soon moves on to rant about his bank. It's a crowd-pleasing routine, with a funny ending relating to a flyer he was handed on the Royal Mile promoting a hard-hitting drama about terrorism. As the Fringe has now past, I feel it ok to share the joke: the flyer for this play about terrorism was sponsored by RBS who - as brilliantly observed by Ryan - use the slogan 'Make It Happen'.
Joe Lycett takes up the second half of the show with a set all about 'Sillyness & Daftness'. It's a good theme to focus on, as the comedian clearly does revel in finding and extracting enjoyment from the absurd and stupid in everyday life. It's pretty infectious funny actually.
The comic picks topics to talk about by getting an audience member to pick a subject from a bag... this seems impressive at first until later in the set when it transpires all the topics have been selected anyway, so the device has simply muddled up the order a bit. Still, it hardly matters as all the topics selected lead to strong routines.
Lycett is less about gags, and more about funny stories and passing comment on the silly things he has discovered. This means some of the source material is from other people (e.g. the reviews written on Amazon.com about products), but Lycett plays a crucial role in framing this material in such a way that it becomes funny - and then mining these observations further for additional humour.
The set encompasses tales about the comedian's mum; his middle-class upbringing; and his attempt at uploading some rather iffy poetry to YouTube to see what the reaction would be. Like Ryan, there's also clearly some new material added too - with a story about what happened in the toilets at one of the festival's venues clearly a new and fresh addition. It should be noted Joe also does an excellent impression of Peter Dickson, the X Factor and E4 voiceover guy.
All in all, a really enjoyable hour which could have been priced at a much higher level than zero if the comedians had so wished, but it's great to see them both taking a more long-term approach to their careers and not rushing straight for the money. Both Joe and Andrew are likely to be big draws on the Fringe in the next two years, so catch them as soon as you can before they realise how much they could be charging.
On a personal note to end on, I'm proud to say I'm the only reviewer in history to comment on Andrew Ryan without mentioning how much he looks and sounds like Ardal O'Hanlon. Awww - damn! I guess it was inevitable I would comment on this, as his Dougal impression is just too good not to mention.