WHO IS? Joe Lycett

The new host of Great British Sewing Bee (9pm, BBC2) will be familiar to fans of panel shows and comedy showcases, but the rest of us might not know him. Here is his story so far…

Joe was born in 1988, and has lived his whole life in Birmingham – in fact, he only moved out of the family home in 2017, when he bought a place of his own. ‘The people there have this real, quiet pride in where they’re from, but no one makes a fuss.’

In 2008, he made his stand-up debut in Manchester while at university. A year later, he was given the Student Comedy Award by the website Chortle; in 2010, that site named him Best Newcomer.

And in 2012, he was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Joe wrote a book called Parsnips, Buttered: How To Win At Modern

Life, One Email At A Time in 2016. It’s

an irreverent self-help book in which he claims we can learn to reverse a parking fine, take down multinational companies and much more.

Also in 2016, Joe took over from Miles Jupp as host of the Radio 4 comedy panel show It’s Not What You Know, while last year, he presented the four-part Radio 4 series Joe Lycett’s Obsessions.

His quirky game show The Time It Takes – Joe’s first TV series presenting role – just ended on BBC1. Later this year, he will be fronting a Channel 4 show – ‘Watchdog with jokes’ – in which he and ‘a proper consumer team’ will deal with complaints, scams and other issues on your behalf.