Synopsis
Flyer
Impressions/Performances
Chatty pocket dynamo Lucy Porter's lastest touring show is loosely themed around the lust for gold. What is it about this yellow metal that makes it so special and so valued? For all of us apart from Lucy herself anyway - she dislikes the stuff (partly as a backlash against her mum's passion for her avocado bathroom set with gold fittings, and her dad's Mr. T-like taste in jewellery!).
Lucy opens the show with a ten minute warm-up for her warm-up act, popular fringe comedian Paul F. Taylor, in which she explains the idea for her part of the show came from the re-discovery, in the back of a drawer, of a gold bangle that her grandmother had entrusted to her as a child, and which was until recently the only gold item she owned. From the start it is to be a show where she interacts freely with the audience, and before handing over to support act Paul F. Taylor she deputises a member of the audience to orchestrate the applause welcoming him on to the stage.
Taylor is a droll young man with a quiet tongue-in-cheek kind of humour allied to a quick wit, cheeky smile, and a keen eye for the absurd. His stint gets off to a slow start as we learn to come to terms with his uniquely surreal outlook on life and adjust our mindset to join him on the same wavelength. But once we are there, we find ourselves in a very funny place indeed. His alternative observations are oftentimes hilarious and have us quaking with laughter (the best being an impromptu slide show about over-sexed pandas!) as he guides us through to the interval.
After the interval Lucy returns for her own stint and it is on with the main business of the evening, chatting about gold and why a simple metal is so revered. She is clearly an intelligent comedienne whose comedy is based on wry and witty observations of the world around her - finding humour in the mundane as well as the weird, and in places the rest of us would overlook or simply rather not visit. Whether talking about her staunchly catholic family - and slightly sinister sounding Irish Republican 'nana' (grandmother), her own adolescence as a silver preferring goth, the (alleged) toilet proclivities of a certain well known celebrity, or inadvertently putting P-Diddy to rout in a Dubai Hotel, she invites us into her confidence like an old friend we have known all our lives. Nothing is held back. The story about her 'nana' is particularly fascinating - imagine the dichotomy of cognitive state of an Anglophobe with two much-loved English grand-daughters. It's a beguiling tale and when the sinister element of the story is totally defused by the unexpected twist in the tail it comes like a gulp of fresh air. In another part of her monologue she goes off on a different tangent and shares her experiences of the differences between the two sexes when 'out on the town' together. Take hen and stag parties for example. In hen parties, she says, the mood starts out convivial then at some point in the evening changes very suddenly with an abrupt crash - which she describes as "happy, happy, happy, happy, crying on the stairs!". Stag parties, on the other hand, follow a much more even and predictable progression of "happy, happy, happy, happy, horny, fighty, dead!". Related with Lucy's cheeky grin and millisecond perfect comic timing it's hilarious stuff.
Casually bantering with the audience, and flirting with an attractive young man in the front row who is singled out for special attention throughout the evening, she entertains in her own unique style - an eclectic mix of raconteur, comedian, coy shoolgirl, loose woman, garden fence gossip, and school-ma'am. I say the latter because her material is not just funny but also essentially informative as we learn about her favourite alchemist(!) and why gold is safe to ingest - indeed Lucy takes great pleasure in feeding a sheet of gold leaf to her favourite young man. And whilst Lucy is not averse to descending to a base level, it is not a cornerstone of her material - and when she does go there her impish charm and child-like innocence are such that even the most prudish among us would find it difficult to take offence. Her material is both funny and fascinating throughout, but the very best is reserved till the end - when she reads us a poem she had written as a love-struck school-age teenager in her chemistry workbook, and invites us to count how many chemical names are worked into the verse. Prizes for the first audience members to call out the correct answer? a tin of golden syrup, jar of gold roast coffee etc.
This is a real feel-good show from the moment she walks out to raucous anticipatory applause, and whilst she is not strictly the funniest comedian currently on the circuit she is vastly skilled - besides which her tremendous stage persona is utterly captivating and makes her by far the most endearing.
Verdict
A hilarious evening in the arms of a uniquely charming and talented observational comedian. A golden performance!
Don Gillan - www.stagebeauty.net