JOE Lycett returned to Stockton ARC, the scene of some of his earliest stand-up work, last night to deliver an evening of silliness and tales of gentle trolling, writes Dave Lawrence.

Lycett has a reputation for his juvenile letters to those in authority, or using the internet to wind up the pompous, the jobsworths and the ill-advised.

His current show has the rather splendid title “I’m About to Lose Control and I Think Joe Lycett” but, in truth, rarely has a comedian seemed so at ease with his audience. Within seconds of taking the stage he was in the audience talking to a guy who claimed to have travelled from Germany for the show. “You shouldn’t have bothered,” Lycett told him. “It’s not that good a show”.

But he was wrong. Stories about his fellow attendees on a speed awareness course in the Black Country, being photographed and twittered about while on a train and his painting efforts and subsequent exchanges with Paul Chuckle all had the audience in gales of laughter.

His anecdote of how his gently trolling of Olympic diver Tom Daley got out of hand – Daley was apparently sponsored by a high street bank to attend a Pride event in London – was funny but raised a serious point about gender and sexual identity.

And while his lengthier stories were funny, a ten-second throwaway joke about diet fads early in the show still had me chuckling hours later.

Last year’s BBC New Comedy Award winner Heidi Regan supported Lycett with her philosophical tales and I suspect she may soon be a regular on our TV screens.