Genuine and uplifting: an interview with Lucy Porter
On the phone, Lucy Porter is as chatty as she appears on stage. It doesn’t surprise me: the majority of her fans say that her shows are enjoyable because the whole experience feels like simply having a talk with her. She confessed to me that the best bits of her gigs are in fact the conversations she has with her fans, afterwards at the bar. When I told her that most of her followers define her as “self-deprecating”, she laughed and agreed: “They say so because I’m not great at lying”. Indeed, she jokes about the fact that she doesn’t seem able to separate her on-stage persona from her image off-stage. She plays the character she really is; that’s the recipe for her success.
As a student of English Literature at the University of Manchester, Porter loved university life and enjoyed the proactive comedy scene. However, her passion for stand-up comedy started much earlier, around the age of eight, thanks to her mum and dad, two enthusiastic theatre lovers. When I asked her about her source of inspiration, she had absolutely no hesitations: the Irish comedian Dave Allen. She used to watch his shows with her parents: Allen had a glass of whisky and a cigarette in his hands, and that did the trick. “So I started to imitate him, sitting on a stool, with whisky and a cigarette,” she added. I wondered if it was then that her parents realised her raw talent for comedy, that natural inclination which makes her theatre so genuine.
Porter plays the character she really is; that’s the recipe for her success.
Her first ever show was in Chester, far enough from home that no one could recognise her. She admitted that she was very insecure at the time, and absolutely preferred to perform in front of perfect strangers, rather than people she knew. I asked her if that has changed now, if she feels more confident after her amazing success. “When you get older, you simply learn not to care about what other people think,” she replied. Comedy is not different from yoga: in both you have to forget about your ego, you have to think less about yourself and let what you do speak on your behalf. To young actors who are trying to break in the comedy scene, she wants to say that it is important to learn to love what you are doing, even when it feels it is not yet going in the right direction. For an actor, it is central not to focus on the outcome, but on your personal journey to achieve it.
Porter has travelled the world with her comedy shows, and her most recent one, Choose Your Battles, will be staged at the Warwick Arts Centre on the 9th of March. I asked her if people from different nationalities perceive her humour in a different way than her usual British audience. She explained that, whilst British comedy focuses on social classes, in America, for example, it is more common to talk about race and ethnic background during a comedy show. British comedy is often based on a very basic sense of humour, which does not have the same result on every kind of audience. She told me about her shows in Holland, where spectators are often culturally sophisticated, and also watch a good deal of British comedy, which makes gigs there particularly successful and fun for her.
Comedy is not different from yoga: in both you have to forget about your ego
She married another professional comedian, Justin Edwards, and they now have two children. Being a mother did not change her artistically. “I’m always myself,” she said, and explained that she felt the need to raise awareness about the challenges of maternity and motherhood in every profession, not only in the world of theatre and stand-up comedy.
An English actress and writer, mostly famous as stand-up comedian, but also a mum, a wife and a woman: how does Lucy Porter describe herself in one word? I have asked her. She chose “up-lifting”.
https://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/whats-on/2018/lucy-porter-choose-your-battles/
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