Tom Lucy

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Friday 29th March 2019

One likeable element of the live comedy business is the huge range of ages involved. On one hand you've got Barry Cryer and Nicholas Parsons doing Edinburgh shows, decades past the traditional retirement age; on the other there's Tom Lucy a few years back, playing the Comedy Store in his mid-teens.

Starting early in this particular industry can work pretty well long-term - just this week a new Netflix/E4 sitcom was announced for fellow teen-success survivor Mae Martin - and the now 22 year-old Lucy is doing alright for himself. He won the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year competition when he was just 19, has written for Michael McIntyre, and supported Jack Whitehall, Kevin Bridges and Aziz Ansari. Not all on the same night, presumably. That'd be some gig.

Now Lucy's own name is up in lights - or in big letters on a poster, anyway - alongside his show title, Reluctant Millennial.

"This is my first headline tour which is very exciting," he says. "I've done a lot of support since I started so it's going to be a change to be the main act, but I'm confident about it. The show is an hour of stand-up that I performed at the Edinburgh Festival last year with some added bits to it that I've been working on since."

And what are his amalgamated bits about?

"It's about my family, and growing up and not feeling like I fit in with the rest of my generation. I think it's the best work I've done so far so I'm looking forward to getting out on the road with it."

He's coming at you. Now let's head back to class.

First gig?

My first gig was a little different to be honest. I was 16 years-old and it was at my school. I went to a great school called Hurtwood House and every Friday there was a concert for all the students and I signed up to do stand-up. It was the most scared I've ever been about anything.

There were probably 100 students and teachers in the audience, all sitting on the floor in the assembly hall, and I did about five minutes of material about the school and the staff and it went unbelievably well. Probably still one of the best gigs I've ever done.

I completely got hooked on it from then on. It felt like a moment in a movie where an addict takes heroin for the first time. I've never really looked back.

Favourite show, ever?

A few moments have been really surreal. Getting to work alongside the people that made me want to do comedy such as Michael McIntyre and Kevin Bridges. Working alongside them and being able to even call them friends is bizarre to me.

When I was 19 I supported Jack Whitehall on his tour which felt like a massive turning point in my career. Suddenly I went from performing in comedy clubs and pubs to big theatres and arenas. It was such a ridiculous experience that changed me as a comedian so much. I felt like when the tour ended I had gained years and years of experience in just a few months.

The one gig from that tour that sticks out the most in my memory was probably the first arena show we did which was Leeds First Direct Arena. I remember distinctly, waiting to go on stage to 15,000 people and thinking back to that school hall when I was 16.

Worst gig?

Well there are too many of these memories to even narrow it down to a Top 10. I did a gig in Peterborough once where a man repeatedly shouted 'Fag' at me throughout my whole 20-minute set. No one from the venue thought to throw him out and I couldn't do anything to get him to stop. I came off stage literally shaking which was pretty awful.

And any gig where there isn't a microphone is terrible. You go from being a stand-up comedian to just being a madman shouting in a room. There's a lot of those in the early days of comedy.

What are the best and worst things about gigging as a 16 year-old, compared to gigging now?

I think when I was 16, 17, 18 years old I had a real novelty factor about me in the clubs which worked in my favour. I was performing in proper comedy clubs at that age, so it was a really weird situation.

For an audience sitting at the Comedy Store for example, they'd see four middle-aged men come on stage talking about being married and then suddenly this skinny 17 year-old would come on and start talking about his teachers.

It made me stand out a lot. I think in hindsight that was a really good thing for me. I couldn't have been more different to the other comics on the bill. At the time it didn't feel strange at all to me, but looking back on it, it must have looked so unusual.

Who's the most disagreeable person you've come across in the business?

I would say 99% of comedians have been very nice to me. There's one that sticks out though. Without naming names, there was a much older comic who, while we were sitting backstage, asked me what joke I was going to open with and then went on stage and did my joke in front of me, literally two minutes after I had told it to him.

Is there one routine/gag you loved, that audiences inexplicably didn't?

Many. It happens to me a lot when I'm writing new material that I find something really funny and I try it out on stage several times and it never really works. It's so frustrating. You just sometimes have this feeling that an idea has mileage in it. And sometimes you keep persevering with it and then eventually you find what's funny, but most of the time, you never find what's funny about it. In fact, you learn that it's not funny at all. But the process of discovering that is pretty painstaking.

Any good travel tips, for gigging comics?

Hand luggage only on flights. I love that. Even if I'm going away for a week, I'll try and go hand luggage only. And I recently discovered London City Airport. What a treat that is.

The most memorable review, heckle or post-gig reaction?

A Dutch man came up to me after a gig once and described my set as 'fine' in the gloriously honest way that people from the Netherlands do.

One time, at the Manchester Comedy Store, I was in the bar after the show with the other two comedians who had been on and this lady from the audience stumbled up to us and just pointed at each of us in order and went 'One, two, three'. She ranked us as comedians to our faces. I was number two, which I was happy with.

How do you feel about where your career is at, right now?

Good. It's easy to find things you're not doing and be annoyed that you're not doing them, but I try and not do that too much. It's an industry that breeds competitiveness so you have to be careful of that. But if I could tell my 15 year-old self that this is what I'd be doing at 22 then he'd be pretty fucking excited.

Tom Lucy's Reluctant Millennial is touring the UK now. For details: tomlucy.com