CULTURE CLUB
Wake-Up Call MIRIAM BALANESCU MEETS THE ADORED WIT, WRITER AND PRESENTER LUCY PORTER AHEAD OF HER SHOW ABOUT THE OVERLOOKED NITTY-GRITTY OF MIDDLE AGE Pyjama party
When you wear pyjamas, people just think: ‘They look comfy!’
Though the male midlife crisis has been much examined in film, television and lengthy tomes, from John Updike novels to moody movies like American Beauty , the female midlife crisis has long been woefully ignored. Lucy Porter, the cherished television and radio comedian, has now set out to change all that. “The men have got Paul Hollywood and every pop star ever who got a sports car and ran off with a younger woman,” asserts Lucy. “With women, it’s all up for grabs, I think. “I describe my show on stage as a midlife crisis management seminar. There’s a lot of me moaning about being middle-aged, but I hope there’s something in it that could appeal to younger or older people – if you’re having a midlife crisis, or any kind of crisis.” With her last tour show, Be Prepared , looking at life through the lens of scouting Brownies badges, her latest tussles with typical midlife territory. “I’m becoming a sort of irritable, curmudgeonly person, which I really thought I would never become. I get irrationally annoyed by milk cartons, people who don’t indicate and just the list of people that I can’t tolerate grows longer every single day. But there is also still room to change and grow. That’s what the show is about – me trying to explore new horizons, keep learning and keep being engaged with the world in order to cope with it.” Lucy addresses this stage of life in an all- singing, all-dancing fashion; even, perhaps, with a bed in tow. “I was going to leap out of it at the beginning of the show, but then I realised that I always need to have a wee just before,” says Lucy of her Edinburgh run. “It takes the audience half an hour to get in. So, I was just lying in bed, thinking: ‘God, I really wish I’d gone for a wee.’ I do still do the show in pyjamas. A lasting legacy of the pandemic is that I’m never going back to wearing normal clothes again. I’ve got some really nice ones – nicer than any of my actual clothes. People always make some judgement about you depending on what you’re wearing, whereas when you wear pyjamas, the only thing people can think is: ‘Oh, I wish I was
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around the country on the train or in my Ford Fusion we inherited from my mother-in-law – a very small car,” she laughs. “If you see a blue car flying up the road with a bed strapped to its roof, you’ll know that’s me.” Coincidentally, Lucy’s husband Justin Edwards will also be in town performing in The Lavender Hill Mob . “I’ll encourage people to see him on a different night, have a very cultural week in Cambridge,” urges Lucy. After that, expect lots more in the works. “I got diagnosed with ADHD last year and it made sense of a lot of my life – the 15 half-finished plays and novels sitting around,” explains Lucy. “I’m hoping to use my knowledge of how to help yourself if you find focusing hard, and get something written!”
her. They look really comfy.’ It’s a really good way to start.” Lucy’s show is subject to constant change. “It’s really never the same twice because I’m always rewriting it – and I’m menopausal and my memory’s completely gone!” Her tours over the years have sent her to see seals on the Norfolk coast, partying with Scouting for Girls, sharing a hot tub with James Gandolfini and sat facing Leonardo DiCaprio across a poker table – but it’s peace and quiet, listening to the radio, fuelled up on snacks and with the temperature at her ‘optimum level of comfort’ which Lucy now enjoys most. “I travel
JUMPING OFF THE PAGE Lucy Porter’s show Wake-Up Call is an exploration of the female midlife crisis
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK JANUARY 2023 17
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