Joe Lycett: Confessions of a hypochondriac

I have had this overactive imagination for most of my life and I am still not dead. BUT ONE DAY I WILL DIE AND THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY.

It's the turn-up of the TV week: BBC1 has a Saturday show that's not just watchable but consistently funny. If they can tinker with it to crowbar in lottery results, this could run and run.

Essentially it's a You Bet! remake, as eccentrics perform obscure feats in front of what today's telly thinks is the ultimate arbiter of taste: a panel of comedians. If they do it, there's a contrived gambling bit where they guess how much the comedians thought the trick was worth. Get it right and it's an "epic win". Flunk out and it's a "fail".

Those terms are internet patois, don't you know, and Epic Win sends itself up with a sly, modern chortle. Alexander Armstrong quippily hosts it, visibly bemused that this lark constitutes paid employment; the secret comedy weapon is compere Joe Lycett, who mimics The X Factor announcer in voiceover and then appears on screen, still doing the voice.

Radio 2 New Comedy Award: Winner Q&A

Last Saturday night Angela Barnes won this year's Radio 2 New Comedy Award 2011, fending off strong competition from fellow finalists Joe Lycett, Tez Ilyas, Chris Turner, Mark Restuccia and Pat Cahill.

On Saturday, the network took a tip from The X Factor with the live final of its New Comedy Award, presented by Patrick Kielty. Six hundred acts were boiled down to six, voted on by the audience. This being Radio 2, the audience sounded about as edgy as a Parent Teacher Association drinking Merlot, but that came as a relief to one comedian who said, "There's nothing worse than looking at the crowd and thinking I've got things in my medicine cabinet older than you." There was lots of encouraging applause and no one heckled. My favourite was the acerbic Joe Lycett, with his mordantly Frankie Howerd-esque story of a driving lesson in Manchester, but Pat Cahills ingenious rap about having your dog put down was also very good. The winner was Angela Barnes from Maidstone whose weapon was the one-liner ("It's no mistake that the anagram of Maidstone is I am Stoned - that's all there is to do!") and who should fit seamlessly into the throng of talented female comedians on radio and TV.

Joe Lycett interview

A chat with Joe Lycett...

With the Damoclean threat of BBC funding cuts being waved above Auntie's channels and stations, this new-talent comedy seems just the kind of show it should be investing in to justify its existence. Here lie sketches and standup from a cast of young comics, including last year's Chortle student comic of the year, Joe Lycett, and others including Joanne Lau, Imran Yusuf and Sarah Campbell.

Often, TV comedy is a slow-moving carousel of the same old, established names. So welcome this pilot, which gives young comics a shop window for their stand-up and sketches. Do you know any of these names? Naz Osmanoglu, Joe Lycett, Imran Yusuf, Lou Sanders, Jason Patterson, Joanne Lau, Ben Sarpong, Eric Lampaert, Victor Daniels, Amy Hoggart, Price Abdi, Annette Fagon, Sarah Campbell? Me neither. Most of them are unknown for a reason, but shows like this only have to find one likely future star: my money's on Miss London.