‘OK, fine. I’m a national treasure’: Joe Lycett on fatherhood, Celebrity Traitors – and his TV show live from a pub — SkimNews
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- Lycett failed his Personal Licence Holders Level 2 Award exam with 38% against the 70% required to legally operate a pub, meaning he cannot yet run the venue at the heart of his new Channel 4 show
- Live from the Lycett Arms premieres Friday at 10pm on Channel 4, broadcast live from a purpose-built pub in east London with a bar, cellar, outdoor area, pool table, darts and karaoke — a set Lycett says was not yet finished at the time of the interview
- Lycett joins The Celebrity Traitors later this year but is sworn to secrecy, only managing to say that host Claudia Winkleman and the production team were 'very nice'
- Lycett is returning to standup after a two-year break, having done one gig a week since last October and announcing a full tour for next year
- Lycett has reshaped his life around his almost-two-year-old son, going to bed at 7pm and cutting back on drinking — though the live show airs roughly three hours after his new bedtime
- The pub will rotate a celebrity manager through a 'trial shift' each week, with Lycett's aunties behind the bar, a weekly quiz and rotating regulars, while Lycett himself concedes 'TV is in freefall' and 'nobody's commissioning anything at the moment'
Why it matters: Lycett's licensing failure (38% versus the 70% needed) creates a real legal risk for Channel 4's show: he told the interviewer a stand-in licensee will run the pub if he keeps failing, leaving the central conceit — Lycett as publican — behind an unresolved bureaucratic hurdle.
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