By Simon Button
Comedian Lucy Porter’s new show is all about regrets. Frank Sinatra had too few to mention, but Lucy’s got hundreds, and she’s prepared to go into graphic detail about all of them.
Disastrous dates, professional calamities, ruined friendships and parenting fails, No Regrets! sees Lucy reveal all the mistakes she’s made, works out why they happened, and ponders how her life would have turned out if she’d acted differently.
Lucy Porter. Picture: Steve Ullathorne
Lucy, an established comedian, actress, writer, voiceover artist and podcaster, will also look at the thoughts and actions we might all collectively regret. We put some questions to the lady herself.
How would you describe the new show?
It’s a romp through some of the more shameful and silly things that I’ve done in my life.
It’s yet another stage in my ongoing midlife crisis, which luckily a lot of my audience seem to be going through with me at the same time.
It’s a lot of fun for people who are leaving behind their partying days for caravanning and jigsaws.
But also, I like to think that younger people will get something out of it because they can learn not to repeat the terrible mistakes that I have made in my life – professionally, personally, sartorially and tonsorially as well as some talk about bad haircuts too.
Edith Piaf had no regrets and Frank Sinatra had too few to mention. What’s your own approximate tally?
I’m certainly doing much better than either of them in that respect.
I talk about Frank Sinatra quite a lot in the show because my dad was a big Sinatra fan and I know Frank Sinatra’s life story, so for him to say he has too few regrets to mention…
Well, I think we could ask one of his four wives whether he should have any regrets. But I love Sinatra and I love Edith Piaf, and The Walker Brothers’ No Regrets is also in the pre-show playlist for people who enjoy songs about regret.
Luckily, I have way more regrets than any of those people, because I have enough to fill a whole evening’s entertainment and more besides.
I’ve got a bag of off-cuts, which is full of regrets that I don’t have time to mention in the show. One lucky audience member gets to sort through the bag and find some of my other deep, dark secrets.
Jennifer Aniston once said “There are no regrets in life, just lessons”. Presumably you don’t agree with that sentiment?
The whole premise for this show came out of the fact that I was doing an interview to promote the last tour I was on and the journalist asked me: “Do you have any regrets?”
I launched into this massive list immediately. I was like: “I regret not standing up to the bullies at school. I really regret dropping French GCSE.
“I really regret not having been more ambitious in my career. I regret the sort of things I said to my mum and dad.”
I went on for ages and the journalist stopped me and said: “Nobody else has ever answered this question.
“I’ve asked everyone and they always say ‘I don’t really have any regrets because every choice I’ve made and every path I’ve taken has led me to be the person I am today, and I feel so grateful and blessed’.”
That made me gag slightly because I thought: “I know we all need to practise gratitude and be happy within ourselves, and I’m way more like that in my 50s than I ever have been before, but no regrets… really?”
And seriously Jennifer Aniston, do you not have any regrets?
Lucy Porter. Picture: Steve UllathorneLucy Porter. Picture: andy@photofarm
What are your biggest professional and personal regrets? Or are you saving the details for the show?
Well, I talk about an incident in Las Vegas and all I can say is that the show ends with an anecdote about James Gandolfini.
I hope that will be sufficiently intriguing to encourage people to come along to find out what that is.
On the personal front, there’s a bit of stuff about relationships and my husband comes in for quite a lot of stick in the show, even though I’m very clear that I do not regret marrying him.
Most of it is kind of silly personal things about dating, pretending to be into kitesurfing to impress boys when I was younger and the crazy dating scene of Manchester in the 90s.
Is there positive, upbeat stuff in there too?
It’s quite nostalgic, where I’m looking back and talking about regrets, and actually it has ended up being a celebration of youth and stupidity and all of the dumb things you do when you’re in your 20s and 30s.
I am by nature irrepressibly cheery to, I have been told, quite an irritating degree, so it’s certainly not a downbeat, introspective show.
It’s much more like Sid Vicious’ version of My Way than Frank Sinatra’s.
It’s got a little bit more bite to it. I think it’s quite healthy to talk about regrets. Even though I love my life and I know how happy and lucky I am, I still think there’s things that I might have done differently if I’d had the chance.
We can’t change our lives but are there certain things that you might have done differently?
I think it’s fine to ask that and again it’s quite useful for younger people. You don’t help the next generation by glossing over the things you’ve done wrong.
You’re a student of comedy history. What have you most been interested to learn about it?
For the last few years I’ve been on the board of the Slapstick Festival in Bristol every winter.
It’s a celebration of silent comedy, slapstick and all kinds of physical comedy, and I have made it my mission to learn about the great women of early cinema.
We know a lot about Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, but there were all these women whose work has been lost in the mists of time – people like Mabel Normand, the Talmadge Sisters, and Marion Davies.
How does doing stand-up on stage as yourself compare to playing other people?
I’m naturally a stand-up. I’ve dabbled in acting but live on stage is where I feel most at home.
I adore the spontaneity and the kind of ethereal nature of stand-up. There are things that you say on stage one night that you will never say again.
Every night is completely different and individual. It depends on the chemistry between you and the audience and who’s in the room.
I don’t do a huge amount of audience participation or crowd work but it’s different every night.
The No Regrets! tour is a really long one. How do you keep yourself match fit? And what couldn’t you be on the road without?
Actually, I don’t keep match fit! I live the unhealthiest life you can imagine.
It’s service station food and bags of Wotsits in the car. I drive myself around, so my car is like a sort of mobile rubbish bin for a few months.
But I do quite a relaxed tour schedule because my kids are still at home and I don’t like to be away for too long.
As for what I couldn’t be on the road without, I’m a herbal tea devotee so I always have teabags.
The last tour I ended up taking a jigsaw with me, because there’s nothing like unrolling your jigsaw in the dressing room to really make you feel at home, and I always wear slippers.
“If anyone visits me in my dressing room thinking it’s going to be, like, cocaine and hot tubs they’ll be disappointed.”
Lucy is a regular face on our television screens, both with her acting work and her many appearances on panel shows.
She has appeared on QI with both Sandi and Stephen hosting, she’s been on Mock the Week, Have I Got News for You, and Would I Lie to You, among other things.
Lucy’s acting work includes a stint on EastEnders, as well as the successful stage version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in Edinburgh and London.
Her big passion, however, is quizzing. She hosts the podcast Fingers on Buzzers, alongside Jenny Ryan, AKA The Chase’s Vixen, and the pair have also recently released their debut quiz book.
Lucy has achieved some personal quizzing goals by bringing home a Pointless trophy and becoming the Celebrity Mastermind ‘Champion of Champions’.
Lucy Porter. Picture: Steve Ullathorne
See Lucy Porter’s new show No Regrets! at the Cambridge Junction (J2) on Friday, 17 January. Tickets, priced £23.50, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Lucy, go to lucyporter.co.uk.