LLOYD Griffith is a comedian, chorister and co-host of Sky Sports’ Soccer AM.

No wonder he is calling his 2019 stand-up tour All Rounder as he heads to the Burning Duck Comedy Club, at The Basement, City Screen, York, on April 25.

“I’ve played there before but on a mixed-bill night, about four years ago,” recalls the 35-year-old Lincolnshire comic, who is said to be equally at ease discussing the trials and tribulations of his chequered love life and listing his favourite English cathedrals.

Lloyd has been picking up momentum with his comedy career since 2017. “After Edinburgh that year, I toured with Rob Beckett and Jack Whitehall, and off the back of that people said, ‘when are you going to be doing your own headline tour?’.”

He has responded to that call but has to balance his comedy commitments with his television presenting and his singing. “But stand-up is the one thing I do that if I don’t do it, I get itchy feet. It’s my happy place,” he says.

That happy place finds Lloyd combining jokes with dubious impressions, more jokes, a bit of choral singing, further jokes, maybe a fact about a cathedral, and still more jokes.

Singing has been part of his life for rather longer than comedy. “Basically, I was in the choir at St James’s Church, Grimsby, which is now called Grimsby Minster, and then I read music at Exeter University,” he says.

“I was a choral scholar in the cathedral and sang there eight times a week, which was pretty full-on. It was a case of not going out drinking on Fridays and Saturdays, because there were rehearsals on Saturdays, and then full-on again with three services on Sundays...but I still crammed in plenty of drinking on other days!”

Lloyd moved to London to do more choral training. “It was then I ‘discovered’ comedy,” he says. “While I was in Exeter, I’d been in a close-harmony barbershop quartet, singing quite cheesy songs in old people’s homes, introducing the songs with a few jokes, thinking comedy might be fun to do.”

Did singing prepare him for the comedy spotlight? “Solo singing does that, learning how to stand. That experience definitely helps,” he says.

“When I decided to try my

hand at comedy, it became a hobby that’s got out of hand! It’s weird how it works. I can’t

complain; I’m very blessed.”

His Soccer AM presenting gig came his way last year when “they were looking for a comedian who was also into football”. “I’m a Grimsby Town fan and occasionally I do co-commentary for BBC Radio Humberside,” reveals Lloyd.

Looking at the content of his All Rounder comedy show, it mentions he may feature a fact about a cathedral. How about York Minster, Lloyd? “York is the only cathedral that’s also a minster,” he says.

In his days at the choir school at St James’s in Grimsby, he would go on choir tours each year, enjoying visits to such cities as York. “I was blown away by the grandeur of the churches, and since then I’ve become an expert on cathedrals, writing a number of books on the subject,” he says.

Meanwhile, he can still be heard singing with the choirs of Westminster Abbey, St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and various London groups: all part of making polymath Lloyd the All Rounder of the tour show’s title.

There is another reason for that title too. “It’s also because I’m a chubby lad, I as well as me doing all these different things and doing anything to make people laugh,” he says.

“I talk about fat-shaming in the show. It’s the one insult that’s still allowed to slip through... that and ‘ginger’.

“In fact I was once in a band called Ginger And Fat in Grimsby, though we only did four gigs. We weren’t very good. Ginger played guitar and I just tried to steal the limelight, but I realised it wasn’t really for me: we wouldn’t be worrying the Gallagher brothers [Oasis] any time soon.”

What comes next for all rounder Lloyd? “I’d love to do a sitcom or a show for BBC Four about cathedrals,” he says.

In the meantime, he is experiencing the high and lows of singing and a rising comedy profile. “I’m trained as a counter-tenor, but I do also have a baritone voice that I use in the stand-up show because there’s only so much laughter I can get talking about my counter-tenor singing,” says Lloyd.

Lloyd Griffith presents All Rounder, Burning Duck Comedy Club, The Basement, City Screen, York, April 25, 7.30pm. Box office: burningduckcomedy.com

Charles Hutchinson