Lucy Porter is probably the shortest TV comedian since Ronnie Corbett. So short a heckler once told her, “You look bigger on the telly…and I’ve got a really small telly!”
The upside is that if Lucy ever wants to evade the public gaze she just hides behind her husband, actor Justin Edwards. She’s 4ft 11, he’s 6ft 5. Consequently, they only see eye to eye when they’re laying down.
“In the bedroom, we’re like a ventriloquist act that’s gone to a very dark place,” she jokes.
Lucy, 51, often gets noticed but not always for the right reason. “People recognise me, but they don’t know where from – they think I used to teach their daughter, the clarinet,” she tells me.
“I was mistaken for ventriloquist Nina Conti once. I found that very flattering. The weirdest one ever was being mistaken for Cherie Blair. The woman wouldn’t take no for an answer. I just don’t see it myself.”
The Croydon-born comic is 15 dates into her new stand-up show tour when we speak. It’s called No Regrets! but don’t be fooled. Likeable Lucy has more hang-ups than a cloakroom. Regrets, revelations and irritations merge in a warm, funny broadside that ranges from genuine remorse about not delivering the eulogy at her late father’s funeral, to “Not buying a bigger air fryer, I could have been cooking twice as many fishfingers…”
The sad decline of the British high street vexes her.
“It’s all vape shops and nail bars now,” Lucy complains. “I love greasy spoon caffs, and I miss Woolworths and Wilkos and wet fish shops and butchers and arctic rolls. I miss C&A. I get very confused shopping online.”
Sometimes Justin reminds her of things she moans about in their daily lives, “Like parking and bins and people who bang on about apps – ‘You can listen to experts talking’ they say, yes, we have that already, it’s called radio.”
When she road-tested the show at the Edinburgh Festival in August, the fire alarm shut the venue. “I had to do the show on the street outside to 85 people with no mic. Projection! They call me the Judi Dench of comedy.”
Don't miss...
Porridge star Ronnie Barker shared 'regret' about filming himself as character [LATEST]
David Mitchell’s wife brands Strictly star ‘very sexy’ as she makes cheeky offer [LATEST]
Peter Kay makes big surprise announcement during I'm a Celebrity ad break [LATEST]
Other professional calamities include a recent gig at a leisure centre – “You could hear shuttlecocks hitting badminton rackets constantly. You have to work with it.”
Hosting the National House Builders Awards at Cheltenham racecourse was tougher – Lucy had to perform with her back to a huge window. “Nobody could see my face. It was like I was on witness protection. I was just a silhouette performing to inebriated builders.”
Mum-of-two Lucy is the third daughter of two south London chemists. Her sisters are ten and twelve years older than her. “I was the afterthought,” she laughs.
After graduating in English literature at Manchester University, she set her sights on becoming a news reporter. “I wanted to be a war correspondent like Kate Adie. I applied to Granada to work on World In Action and ended up on Stars In Their Eyes instead – that was my Sliding Doors moment.”
Lucy became a guest booker on The Mrs Merton Show – “Caroline Aherne was phenomenal…I was tentatively thinking of trying stand-up and she and Craig Cash were lovely and supportive.”
She first told jokes in public in the Brownies, aged 8, winning an entertainer badge; and did it for real in 1999 at the Alexander Jazz Café in Chester. “I didn’t want anyone who knew me to see it, just in case…I looked incredibly young. People were aghast, they thought some sort of work-experience child had come on stage to check the microphone.”
Early gigs included Manchester working men’s clubs. “It could be a little bit Phoenix Nights, if a woman turned up, they’d presume she was a stripper.”
Once on the comedy club circuit, with the likes of John Thomson, Steve Coogan and Johnny Vegas, she never stopped. She even played Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, for a US TV Comedy Special. “It went okay, but they were slightly confused by my references to Hobnobs.”
Her first TV appearance was on Russ Abbot’s Christmas Madhouse in the mid-90s. “I told someone at Granada I loved Russ and would love to be in his show. Days later I was playing his daughter in a Pride & Prejudice spoof. It was the peak of my TV career…”
A career that spans comedy panel shows, Taskmaster, soap and becoming Celebrity Mastermind’s Champion of Champions (specialist subject, Victoria Wood).
She did Mock The Week but prefers less competitive radio comedies like Just A Minute and The News Quiz.
Porter lives near Pinner, in west London – “so far west we get Welsh telly”. She met Justin at the Edinburgh festival in the early 2000s, becoming drinking buddies before romance blossomed. “He was the first man I met who didn’t like football. I think that’s why I married him.”
Friends of their teenagers are impressed that their father was in a Marvel film. “He played a cop who got thrown across a car park by Natalie Portman in Thor: The Dark World,” says Lucy. “My superpower is I can take a nap anywhere, at any time. My mum always said I could sleep on a washing line. I go to sleep on trains with my head on the shoulder of the poor person sitting next to me, dribbling over his arm.
“I wake up at 4am every morning and replay every terrible thing I’d done the day before. I can sleep any time – except when you’re supposed to.”
Comedy and Brit-Pop brightened her teens. A shy girl, she recalls looking “slightly gothic and miserable” at local clubs like the Blue Orchid, “where the cool popular kids hung out.”
Growing up, her home was full of laughter – the Arsenal-mad father loved Dave Allen and the family would lap up popular situation comedies like ’Allo ’Allo! and Are You Being Served.
“Sitcoms aren’t given time to grow now,” she observes. “They’re expensive and are viewed as high risk. I do like Sophie Willan’s Alma’s Not Normal. There are still good shows out there.”
In her mid-teens, Lucy’s sister sneaked her into Balham’s Banana Cabaret comedy club underage to see turns like Julian Clary in his Joan Collins Fan Club days, Jo Brand and Mark Steel.
In her wide-ranging career, Porter has acted in the West End with Cristian Slater, written the thought-provoking play The Fair Intellectual Club (spawning a six-part Radio 4 series) and appeared in EastEnders.
“I played Rita – my mum’s name – a ‘struggling single mum too tired to dress properly’. I turned up at wardrobe they took one look at what I was wearing and said ‘you’re fine to go’.
“I’d love to go back, but just doing it was an achievement. I’d also love to do Coronation Street. When I worked at Granada, I’d see the cast in the bar. Johnny Briggs was always on the fruit machine. I remain hopeful.”
One unfulfilled ambition is pantomime. “I’d love to do it,” she enthuses. “I see three pantos every year. It’s an underrated art form and it appeals to the whole family, all ages. I saw Joe Pasquale he was brilliant. Brian Conley was amazing.
“I haven’t seen Bradley Walsh but I went to see Gladiators in Sheffield with my daughter and saw him work the crowd – he’s phenomenal.”
Lucy hosts a quiz-related podcast with Jennie “The Vixen” Ryan, and is planning a Croft & Perry sitcom-themed one, to explore the connections between Dad’s Army, It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, Hi-de-Hi! and You Rang M’Lord?
During lockdown she was diagnosed with ADHD. The specialist told her it explains why she does stand-up. “He said, ‘Your brain cannot function in a linear way, and it has to go off on tangents. Your executive function is impaired’. So when I forget my keys and get my husband up at 2am after a gig, it’s not my fault.
“I wept with gratitude.”
Lucy’s live shows are so amiable and welcoming, fans return regularly and form friendship groups. Nobody heckles.
“In the early days, you’d get the occasional ‘Get your t**s out!’ or ‘Make me a sandwich’, which was always delightful,” she recalls. “But these days, I don’t get heckled at all. It’s very good-natured and polite.
“Come along, you won’t regret it.”
*Lucy Porter’s No Regrets tour is running until 5th April. Find ticket links at lucyporter.co.uk/gigs/
