Stand-up Lucy Porter and the art of letting yourself go - Guildford date

For her latest show Lucy Porter has turned around very nicely a mean comment made about her on social media.

“Someone said, after I was on a programme, ‘She has let herself go,’” Lucy explains, “and I thought that was quite funny.

“When you were younger if someone says you're letting yourself go then it's a really positive thing. You are up and dancing on the table and you're having a fantastic time and it's really meant as a compliment. But when you are my age, it is probably not meant as a compliment. But I decided that I would take it as a compliment!”

The result is Let Yourself Go, an hour of stand-up exploring what it means to age, evolve and loosen your grip on everything from self-image to social expectations; a stand-up show about reinvention, resilience and the liberating joy of letting go – of expectations, identities and your pelvic floor. And as Lucy says, it is silly. Very, very silly!

Dates include Saturday, October 24 at 8pm at G Live Guildford.

Not the least aspect of Lucy’s resilience is the fact that she is still doing it. Remarkably, this is her 18th solo show.

“My first solo show was in 2002, and I just think that's what you do in show business. You just keep going, and the longer I am around, the more I'm looking at other people's long careers. You drift in and out of favour. I really like talking to the elder statesmen of showbusiness. I was lucky enough to interview Les Dennis the other day and I think that really puts it into perspective. You have setbacks and you have fallow periods but you just hold your nerve. But fundamentally I still really enjoy what I'm doing, and that helps coming up to Edinburgh and being on tour and all the live stuff that I do. The fact is that I do definitely really enjoy it.”

And this is a show which is certainly resonating with certain sections of the population: “I don't think I'm going get the hip young things in any more but lots of people are saying ‘Yes! I do recognise that!’ about the kinds of things I am talking about.”

Audiences can expect stories about clubbing in the 90s, working at Granada Television and being married to a man more than a foot taller than she is. There may also be embroidery, a few stern words for poor indicators and a gentle message of encouragement to anyone currently trapped in a pub toilet in a jumpsuit.

The show has certainly been a chance to reflect: “I do think that as I've got older I have definitely got nicer in general. I'm much more benevolent now in my worldview but I do tend to get much more irritated with things – with parking apps and packaging and things like that, all the things of the modern world. Here at the (Edinburgh) Fringe you've got five different websites and five different apps to get tickets. So yes I'm definitely grumpier but I would say that I am more contented as well. But I do think I take much less nonsense now.

And that's something she explores in her new book, Middle-Aged Women Get Sh*t Done: A Manifesto (or a Cry for Help?): “It's about how hard it is being a middle-aged woman but also about how amazing it is. I've described it as more a self-pity book than self-help! But is meditation on a lot of things.”