Joe Lycett’s bid to be a pub landlord as he applies for licence to run a one hour a week pub*

(*ALSO NEW TV SERIES FOR CHANNEL 4)

Career comedian Joe Lycett is currently applying for a licence to sell and serve alcohol - because he’s setting up his own pub. And it’s a pub with a difference - because it will only be open for an hour a week. During that hour, it will operate as the setting for Joe’s new live Channel 4 series The Lycett Arms, produced by Bango Studios and My Options Were Ltd, and featuring top drawer comedy entertainment from Joe and a pub full of celebrity guests.

In order for the show to go ahead, Joe will need to be fully accredited with a personal licence to serve alcohol. He is currently completing the necessary forms and swotting up for the approved training course, after which he will take the mandatory exam in order to be accredited with a Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders.

Joe Lycett said, “I’ve always wanted to run a pub that only exists for an hour a week, for the purposes of a TV concept, and I’m thrilled beyond words to embark on the extended process of applying for a license to sell and serve alcohol. Filling in government-mandated paperwork has always been a passion of mine, and I only hope that at some point it involves the presentation of at least one form of photographic ID. Pretty much the only disappointment is that in addition to this enthralling form-filling process, I will also have to make a television series, as this is apparently the only way to make the whole tax dodge work.

Nevertheless, I will meet my obligations to sit in front of a camera welcoming celebrities into the pub for great conversations and top comedy, it says here, and generally creating an unmissable event that will brighten your Friday evenings for six weeks. Those are all the words that I have been requested to say. Now I can return my attention to figuring out how to get round being locked out of Gov.uk.”

Broadcasting live on Channel 4 every Friday at 10pm, The Lycett Arms (6x60”) takes place inside Joe Lycett’s own pub, a technicolour, paisley-carpeted East London boozer where punters can escape the world while putting the world to rights.

The pub will be frequented by a cast of regulars, old friends and strangers all welcomed with open (Lycett) arms by Joe and his weekly celebrity Pub manager. Each week The Lycett Arms will twin with a different pub from across the UK, celebrating what is special about Britain’s locals. Live, anarchic, and with the wheels threatening to come off at any moment, The Lycett Arms is a love letter to the great British pub.

Tom Beck, Head of Live Events & Commissioning Editor, Entertainment & Reality, Channel 4 said, “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. 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.”

Emily Hudd and Iain Wimbush, Bango Studios, added: “We’re delighted that we will be helping to facilitate one of the Joe’s lifelong dreams; to set up and run his own pub (with extremely limited opening hours), and transmit it live on Channel 4. It’s an absolute thrill to be working with Joe again on a show which promises to be an exhilarating slice of live entertainment joy - so long as all the paperwork comes through on time.’

The series is a Bango Studios and My Options Were Ltd production commissioned by Tom Beck for Channel 4. Executive producers are Joe Lycett, Iain Wimbush and Emily Hudd, with Beck from Channel 4.

The Lycett Arms will air on Channel 4 later this year.

About Bango Studios

The team behind Bango Studios has a reputation for mischief; hijacking news headlines, creating viral noise and bolstering viewership with innovative social promotion.

They create formats that reinvent popular genres and have built long and trusted relationships with the best new and established UK talent in front of and behind the camera.

In the past year they have delivered an epic week of Stand Up 2 Cancer programming, Trump v The Truth and Wrestling Trump with Munya Chawawa, all for Channel 4, their BBC One feature Kevin Bridges: In Search of the Beautiful Game is currently airing on BBC iPlayer.

At their previous production company, collectively the Bango Studios co-founders Emily Hudd and Iain Wimbush amassed three BAFTA awards, ten BAFTA nominations, three RTS awards, two Broadcast awards, three Edinburgh TV Awards, a Grierson, a Cannes Lion, a MIPCOM format award, as well as nominated for Best Production Company at the Broadcast Awards.