JOE Lycett took his first steps on the comedy scene in 2008, reaching the final of the BBC New Comedy Awards that year, but only now is he undertaking his first British tour.

The second leg begins on Monday at the Hyena Lounge Comedy Club in York, and Joe admits he is still honing his craft.

“I’ve only been going six years, so I don’t really know what I’m doing,” he admits. “The comedian Mick Ferry told me it takes ten years to know what you’re doing but I don’t think he’s right because you’re always learning.

“Your style has to evolve over time. At first you go in trying to do what you think other people will find funny, and the first time you’re so overwhelmed with stimulus, you end up ‘crippling’ on stage.

“That’s why one of the best reasons you chat to the audience members at gigs is that they’ll say things that are hilarious because, in the spotlight, they don’t know what they’re saying.”

It takes time, reckons Joe, to stop being ridiculous and instead be yourself on stage. “That’s when there’s purity there rather than something disingenuous,” he says.

Ask him to define his form of being himself when performing and Joe answers: “I think I’m a kind of cheeky camp chap. I get a bit annoyed at the way camp is portrayed as shallow and bitchy; I want it to be more inclusive with everyone involved. Rather than being bitchy, me being camp is just friendly but in a funny way.

“I like a show to be playful. People come to a comedy show for various reasons but you don’t want them to go home feeling like they’ve been humiliated. The show might involve having a little pop at them but not making a fool of them.”

The moment Joe realised he could make people laugh came when his parents started letting him go to parties with them and he would play the room. It was the same at school. “At 16, apparently I was the joker, the funniest person in class, though I don’t remember being funny,” he says.

Nevertheless, the performer in Joe was unleashed and he duly studied drama with English Literature at Manchester University. Comedy beckoned.

“I saw this advert that invited people to do stand-up comedy. It was run by a couple of girls who ended up in the sketch group Lady Garden and were doing sketches with Ade Edmondson’s daughter,” he recalls.

“They were having this charity night at the Comedy Store and I successfully auditioned for it. On the night, the person who went on before me was Jack Whitehhall, who was already a very good act, and he came off and said, ‘Don’t worry; there’s a guy on the right who’s a bit chatty but you should be all right’.

“It was really good going on after him because the crowd were really up for it and he’d dealt with the hecklers.”

Onwards and upwards went Joe after that February 2008 debut, to the point of appearing on such television shows as Never Mind The Buzzcocks, 8 Out 10 Cats and Celebrity Juice and BBC Radio 4’s Just A Minute. Now he is taking his sell-out show from last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe around the country.

“Basically it’s a show about my life, though essentially I have a naughty side that comes out in various mischievous ways, like messing around with newspapers trying to sell fake stories to the Sunday papers,” says Joe.

Come the tour’s end, Joe must turn his thoughts to this summer’s new show for the Edinburgh Fringe. After Some Lycett Hot and If Joe Lycett ThenYou Should’ve Put A Ring On It, what punning title might he use next? “I’m thinking of calling it That’s The Way Uh Uh Uh Uh Joe Lycett,” he says.

I lycett.

Joe Lycett: If Joe Lycett Then You Should’ve Put A Ring On it, Hyena Lounge Comedy Club, The Basement Bar, City Screen, York, Monday, 8pm; doors open at 7pm. Box office: hyenalounge.com. Also Fruit, Hull, Tuesday; Wardrobe, Leeds, Wednesday.