Joe Lycett investigated by police after ‘offended’ audience member complains about joke

Comedian Joe Lycett has revealed he was investigated by police after an audience member reported him over an ‘offensive’ joke during a stand-up performance.

Explaining the incident on social media, the comic said he had to write a statement to explain the context of his on-stage joke to officers, which had included the phrase ‘giant donkey d***’. 

He did not say which tour show led to the police complaint.

Thankfully, Lycett was able to see the funny side of the investigation, which has since been closed by police.

In a Twitter post, Lycett said: “So someone came to my tour show a few weeks back and was offended by one of the jokes.

“And their perfectly understandable response to this was… to call the f****** police.

“To be fair to them the fuzz were very nice about it all but felt they had a duty to investigate. This involved me writing a statement explaining the context of the joke for them; I particularly enjoyed putting the words ‘giant donkey d*** into a message to a police detective.

“Charmed, and hopefully amused, the rozzers have since closed the matter.

“You’ll be pleased to know that the joke – which I consider to be one of the best I’ve ever written – remains firmly and proudly in the show.”

Lycett added that his ‘More, More, More! How Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett?’ tour will continue until September: “unless I am jailed, of course”. 

Though this isn’t the first time the comedian has been embroiled in controversy for his sense of humour; at the start of the year, Lycett wreaked havoc in Number 10 with his own version of the anticipated Sue Gray report.

He shared his own spoof version of the report – which was investigating the numerous parties held at Number 10 during the 2020 lockdowns – onto Twitter,  included a comical list of findings in the ‘leak’, with references to WhatsApp group chats named ‘Definitely a Meeting’ and ‘Down It Street’.

He later revealed that the humorous report was taken a little too seriously within the walls of Number 10, with a ‘verified’ source who works for a cabinet minister claiming that MPs’ staff were ‘running around panicking’ after seeing the tweet.

Though the source clearly found the whole thing hilarious, with them sending a series of laughing face emojis and a congratulatory message: “Absolutely legendary work well done”.