Comedian Lucy Porter talks to Jane McGowan about motherhood, marriage and misogynist hecklers
She may be a diminutive figure, but Lucy Porter has been big on the UK comedy scene for more than 15 years. The 44-year-old, South London mum-of-two, who cut her comedy teeth as a writer on the Caroline Aherne vehicle The Mrs Merton Show, has gone on to make a name for herself in stand-up, bringing her brand of warm, feel-good humour to audiences around the world.
These days she is a regular face on television programmes such as Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo and Have I Got News for You, while her latest tour – ‘Choose Your Battles’, which comes to Maidenhead this month – finds her pondering the whole idea of confrontation: everything from Twitter trolls to screaming at your children to clean their teeth.
“I used to have a really laid-back life,” she laughs. “I lived on my own, worked on my own – I could go days without talking to anyone, let alone have an argument. Then suddenly I found myself married with two kids, and with kids comes a lot of stuff – like rules and parents and other parents...”
Lucy married actor and fellow comedian Justin Edwards in 2009. The couple live in London with their two daughters, aged six and seven, and Lucy describes her style of parenting as “benign neglect”, preferring to “just let them get on with it”.
“I came to this [parenting] relatively late in life,” she says, “and it has been a shock to the system. It seems that there are two types of parents: those who want their children to be successful and those who want them to be kind.”
Yet no matter how much you want to give your children room to express their personalities, admits Lucy, there are times when you have to step in.
“My husband is much better at it than I am,” she laughs. “But I don’t want it to become this good cop, bad cop thing, whereby he tells them off and I am the one they come crying to. We need to find a balance.”
For a young woman so averse to confrontation, gigging her way round the drunken comedy clubs of the late 90s and early Noughties must have been tough.
“There was a lot of heckling,” she admits. “When I look back now, some of it was sexual. Male comics didn’t have people shouting: ‘Get your tits out!’ But I was so desperate to do comedy that I plucked up all my courage. After a little sip of vodka, I’d just get on with it.”
Something of a trailblazer for women comedians, Lucy is often the lone female presence on the myriad panel shows that fill the TV and radio schedules.
“Comedy is definitely more of a man’s world,” she says. “Men are usually in charge, whether as venue owners, producers or promoters.”
As for TV, she concedes, it often used to feel as if women were included on panel shows as a kind of “gesture”. But no longer.
“The planets are aligned. Directors are now seeing that women are not a risk when it comes to being funny.”
She fully supports calls to close the gender salary gap: paying women and men differently for doing the same job, she insists, “makes absolutely no sense”.
“There has to be greater transparency. This is a new wave of feminism: women need to work as much as men do and they should receive the same remuneration.”
Another thing with which Lucy struggles to come to terms is the proliferation of Twitter trolls: “people who take pleasure in putting others down” and, equally, those who are constantly affronted by the world.
“People are so ready to take offence. We seem to be angry about everything. I sometimes get all upset about what someone has said and spend ages crafting a response. Then, just as my finger hovers over send, I chicken out and delete it. Again, more confrontation that never used to be there in my life.”
A self-confessed “comedy nerd”, Lucy was brought up on a diet of late 70s and 80s television comedy. She cites Dave Allen and Victoria Wood as two of her heroes, their laid-back, observational musings inspiring her own style of performance.
“I had never been a great public speaker, but I love the craft of comedy. I like how a joke is constructed. How someone can take an amusing thought and make it a really funny story, just by playing with language.”
More recently, being a mum has added a wealth of weapons to the Porter comedy arsenal.
“Motherhood has actually increased my confidence,” reflects Lucy. “Well, having said that, maybe I am just too tired now to care about what other people think.”
And, like most working mums, she has found herself juggling her career with the need to be at home.
“Oh yes, the balls are always up in the air at my house,” she laughs. “People used to ask if I was going to stop doing stand-up, as it’s not very compatible with family life. Sadly, I found that I couldn’t. But I’ve tailored it to my new responsibilities.
“Stand-up is addictive. Yes, it’s terrifying and I used to suffer from a certain amount of stage fright. But once you’re up there, there is no feeling like it. I love the immediacy of it and being in front of an audience is electrifying. I don’t think I could ever give it up.”
We’re very glad to hear it.
- Lucy Porter, Choose Your Battles, is at The Maltings, Farnham, Feb 23 (farnhammaltings.com); Epsom Playhouse, March 3 (epsomplayhouse.co.uk) and Norden Farm, Maidenhead, March 23 (norden.farm)
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