Lyons graduated from the University of York in 1992 with a degree in psychology.
She appeared on the reality television show Survivor in 2001 in its first series and was the eleventh of the fourteen contestants to be voted out of the competition. She was voted out after 2 members of her Ular tribe alliance (Richard and Jackie) aligned with the eventual winner, Charlotte to vote against her. She was voted out in a tie-breaker, where past votes from previous episodes come in to play.
In 2004 Lyons won the Funny Women Awards. Since then, she has toured the UK stand-up circuit, as well as playing regular gigs in London and Brighton. In 2007, her debut solo show, “Fight or Flight”, was nominated for the best newcomer award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2008, her second solo show, “Mangled Mantra of the Messed up Modern Mind”, featured a joke which was awarded digital television channel Dave’s Joke of the Fringe.
In 2011 as part of her second international tour, Lyons was invited to perform “Clownbusting” at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in Australia. Reviews were favourable, with a critic from Australian Stage reporting: “I have renewed faith in stand-up comedy after seeing UK comedian Zoe Lyons. “Clownbusting” is a magnificently written and delivered show which holds from start to finish”
She is extremely versatile. Without ‘doing’ characters, she uses voices and facial expressions for a couple of sentences now and then and illustrates her material with lightning portraits of neighbours, friends, bar-staff… Rather like Alan Bennett on speed she has the gift of drawing a character vividly and in few strokes, but is never cartoonish or grotesque.