31/07/14

Stand Comedy Club, Edinburgh

Lucy Porter supplied a chirpy, exuberant start to Ed Fest 2014. Porter is what used to be called a ‘pocket dynamo’ – tiny and full of energy, she launched headfirst into her routine and rarely stopped for breath along the way. There’s nothing remotely ‘new’ or indeed challenging about her approach to comedy, but she’s so charming and charismatic that this hardly seems to matter. Her stories are essentially anecdotal (I loved the remark that when she and her very tall husband, Justin, have sex, he looks like he’s wearing a novelty glove puppet), and she has an easy rapport with the audience, making this a delightful experience. This was a lunchtime preview show, so some of the timings and the musical links hadn’t quite been worked out, but this will surely only get better as the festival progresses. We could have chosen a lot worse to kick things off.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney