Lucy Porter at The Spring, Havant REVIEW: ‘Laugh-out-loud funny’

Her audience was, by-and-large, exactly the demographic she was aiming for and the comedy – observational, clever and pointed – is delivered as though she is talking to you as an individual.

This was very true for three members of her audience. Connecting with a younger (Donald) and older (Tina) and a middle-aged (Yours Truly – the perils of sitting on the front row) Porter weaves her audience into the performance, relating to their life-experiences and leading us neck-deep into hers.

The first half of the show primarily concerns her experience of the menopause and the reaction of the people around her to both her hot flushes and hot flashes of anger born of that biological conflict. It is easy to appreciate her frustration at people’s most-repeated response to those menopausal moments: ‘Aw. Is it The Change?’

The second half of the show is more sombrely-themed but remains laugh-out-loud funny. Describing the clearing of her parents’ house following their deaths, she presents us with a line-up of hideous ornaments, collected over the years and adored by her parents but appalling to the outsider – a green and white knitted owl and a glass clown and some pottery Mexican musicians stay firmly in the mind’s eye.

Like all good comedy – it’s funny because it’s true and also because it’s sad and I shall be first in the queue the next time Porter ventures to Havant.