Lucy Porter is about to head out on her 18th solo tour, Let Yourself Go, after saying the title grew out of a social-media comment that she had let herself go. Since February, she has been on the road, and she says the new material keeps turning the joke back on the person telling it.
“It’s a terrible addiction. Some people would say that doing 18 solo shows should fill me with pride, whereas I look at it and think, oh God, I haven’t been able to quit the habit.” That is the line Porter draws through the show and her career: the title works as an insult and a self-own at the same time.
Let Yourself Go
“My shows are largely an exercise in airing my dirty laundry and chastising myself for all my shortcomings,” Porter said. She also said the title can be read in two ways: when you are young, letting yourself go means dancing on tables and having a great time; when you are middle aged, it means lying on the sofa with a blanket doing a jigsaw.
That split is the engine of the show. Porter says she talks about the joys and non-joys of being in your 50s, which gives the tour a sharper edge than a simple comeback routine. The material is built from self-scrutiny, but it lands because it starts with something recognisable: an insult that tries to shame age and appearance, then gets turned into the premise of a tour.
Botox and aging
“if you want to put people off having fillers and Botox, then this might be a good show to bring them to,” Porter said. She adds that she once tried Botox and talks in the show about how awfully badly that went, then pushes the joke further with, “My attitude is you get to an age where you have to decide whether you want to look tired or surprised, and tired is the route I’m going down.”
Her own line about ageing is more direct than polished. Porter said, “I might get to a Joan Rivers point where I have a facelift and become a bit more aggressive,” which places the show inside a broader conversation about what middle age does to a performer’s material and image. It is also where the show stops being a complaint and becomes a running bit with a clear point of view.
Middle-Aged Women Get Shit Done
“It’s called Middle-Aged Women Get Shit Done,” Porter said of the book she is writing. She described it as a love letter to her fellow women, with observations about the responsibilities and delights of being a middle-aged woman, which makes it sound like a companion piece rather than a side project.
“You get a disproportionate level of douche-baggery online,” Porter said of the insult that helped name the show, and that is the useful bit for readers: the title does not come from a marketing brainstorm but from a real slight she has folded into the act. “I’ll still be doing it,” she said of stand-up, and that is the practical takeaway for anyone tracking her work — Porter is not stepping away from the circuit; she is using age, online abuse and the limits of appearance culture as fresh touring material.
