Award-winning comic, writer and actress Lucy Porter is coming to town! Whoop! Victoria Nangle speaks with her.
VN: You must get this a lot today – and female comics hate it when you mention gender – do you think the whole ‘harder for women comics’ thing is created by the press?
LP: I think it probably is actually, yes. You’re absolutely right. It is one of those things where even as recently as this morning I was asked. (Chuckles.) I had to say to someone, “Please! I can’t talk about it anymore!” I really don’t know what it’s like to be a male comic. I don’t know if it’s harder than me. Life is hard; jobs are hard, y’know. I sometimes think it would be good to change gender and just try being a male comic for a while; to have yourself billed as a man, with a man’s name, and make no reference to it. Just talk about being a man: ‘hey, guys. You know what it’s like when you’re in your shed, watching Top Gear, drinking beer?’ But you know I’m so far away from being stereotypically female, and most male comics aren’t Alpha males. The whole gender thing in stand-up, it’s largely a media construct.
VN: Maybe we should come up with a new one. Is it different being a shorter comic? A taller comic? A comic with dark hair?
LP: Exactly. All those things are as preposterous, but you do get that though, that’s the weird thing. There always needs to be an angle to a story. It can’t just be – here’s a good comic, oh here’s another good comic. It has to be ‘What is it about younger children that makes them brilliant comics?’ You just find absolute bulls*** articles, like ‘Coming from the West Country is clearly the key to being a successful comic’…
VN: When I’ve hung out with a group of comics they’ve each come up with their own term for their bad time of it. ‘Black dog’ or whatever. But claiming each one as their own, different from everyone else’s.
LP: Well, we are quite a depressive bunch, to be fair. I always thought it was a bit of a lazy cliché about comedians always being desperately depressed, but I’ve often puzzled about this. I think if you’re slightly on the downbeat side you’re attracted to making people laugh, and then the very act of doing the job can drive you further down into the pits of depression.
VN: It’s strange that the act of being a comic is from someone trying to break out of restrictions, whereas the first thing the media does is try to pigeon-hole them.
LP: Non-conformists you see, it’s something that people find very difficult to deal with. Also, I think most comedians would class ourselves as mavericks and free-thinkers and non-conformists, and yet a lot of the comedy circuit is quite samey and you do find that you conform in your own way. There are comic conventions that you end up adopting and falling in line with. We’re never as original as we’d like to think we are.
VN: How would you describe your show?
LP: It’s good fun. And it’s loosely themed. The theme is gold, which a lot of people have been slightly baffled by because in the past I’ve had very abstract themes like happiness and love and luck and things. This one is much more of a concrete tangible thing. There is a lump of gold in the show, so it has a very concrete basis to it. People say, ‘but I’m not all that interested in gold, so why would I come and see the show?’ And I reply, it’s around five per cent about gold and ninety-five per cent just me going on about anything that comes into my head.There’s more of a tight backbone to the show than I’ve had in previous years, so it does allow me to go off and be a bit freer with it.There’s lots of silliness in it. I get people to eat gold, and I show off some bits of gold that I’ve got, and talk about the history of gold. There’s a little bit of fact in it too, so it’s good for quiz fans.
VN: Do you know what your next show is going to be about? I saw Stephen Grant Tweeting about his show titles recently.
LP: I tend to leave it a little bit later than Stephen because he’s so Mr Super Organised. A few years ago, just before Edinburgh, I was in South Africa with Stephen for a month and the there was such a contrast between the way that we were getting ready for our shows. He was super-efficient, super ready and had decided what his show was going to be months before, and was just fine-tuning it in June. And I was there with a blank piece of paper and a panicked expression on my face, saying ‘I don’t know what I’m doing!’
VN: Do you have any personal comedic taboos?
LP: No, not at all. I’ve tried to do material that hasn’t worked. What I try not to do –and have to work very hard at – is revealing personal secrets about those closest to me when I’m on stage. That’s probably the nearest I come to any self censorship. Sometimes your close friends will tell you brilliant stories and then say you can’t tell anyone, which to a comic is just the most frustrating thing. A couple of times I have broken my own rule and changed the names and tried to change it and told someone’s story on stage.
I’ve found the style that I’ve developed is a lot more anecdotal and it does mean I talk about my actual life and it is all true. That can be quite awkward, but it’s what I do best.
VN: Comedy has to be a passion if you do it, then.
LP: Exactly. You can’t have too many principles when you’re self-employed. If you don’t get the gig you don’t get paid so you do use everything in your armory to secure that employment – or to make people laugh.
Lucy Porter – Good As Gold, Komedia, Sunday 14 March, 7.30pm, £14/12
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