Comedian Joe Lycett aims to “celebrate our British boozers” in a new live pub series set to broadcast on Channel 4.
The 38-year-old will open an east London pub for just an hour a week on Fridays for the duration of the live episodes in the six-part series,The Lycett Arms.
In order for the show to go ahead, Lycett had to be fully accredited with a licence to serve alcohol and underwent a training course and exam to obtain a level 2 award for personal licence-holders.
In each episode, Lycett will be accompanied by a celebrity pub manager on a trial shift and The Lycett Arms will be paired with a real pub elsewhere in the UK.
He said: “The live performance sector, if you want to call it that, is under great threat, and the pub industry is as well.
“And I think anything we can do to celebrate our British boozers is a good thing because yes, they provide a watering hole and, as I’ve said, I do think they’re really good for society at large.
“It’s good to have a public house where the public can come in and mingle with one another.
“It’s good for people who are lonely. It’s good for people who need to connect with their community.”
Lycett added: “I moved to my area of Birmingham because I loved the local pub and I still do, and when I go in there, there’s always someone that I kind of know and can sit and have a drink with.
“I think it’s been a place of great solace for me over the years, and I think pubs closing in places kills the local area.
“And so we definitely want to champion those amazing boozers around the country, and it’s a sort of a spiritual place for lots of people.”
Tom Beck, Channel 4’s head of live events and commissioning editor for entertainment and reality, commented on the effort to bring Lycett back to the screen. “Enticing Joe Lycett back onto Channel 4 screens has been a long and arduous process, involving months of delicate negotiations, emotional resilience and, in the end, the promise of legally binding admin,” Beck said.
He added: “Thankfully, Joe’s appetite for bureaucracy remains undimmed, and we are delighted that he has agreed to spend Friday nights running a pub that is open for one hour a week, while also reluctantly making what we are legally obliged to describe as a brilliant new live entertainment series.”
The Lycett Arms airs live on Channel 4 on Friday nights at 10pm from September 4.