Slapstick Festival is gearing up for another side-splitting programme of classic comedy that helped shape the funniest leading lights on stage and screen today. Rosanna Spence speaks to Lucy Porter, who’s presenting two events at the festival focusing on female comics, ahead of the launch of her own 18th solo stand-up show in Bristol.
Hi Lucy! You’ve been part of Slapstick many times over the years, and you’re regarded as a real festival favourite. What is it about Slapstick that keeps you coming back to celebrate classic on-screen comedy?
There are a few elements to it. Firstly, obviously, is the chance to spend some time in Bristol, which is always a joy and a delight. I have become a bit of a sort of regular fixture. They know my name at the hotel now, There’s a really good breakfast there, so that’s bit of a draw! But yes, I came to the festival years ago thinking, ‘Oh, I quite like Harold Lloyd, and I quite like Laurel and Hardy… this will be quite good fun’. And
then through the years, I have become so much fonder and more knowledgeable about the world of silent movies. I’ve always loved the look of 1920s and 30s, the Hollywood glamour, and you get that in spades at this festival.
What I love is that at the most miserable time of the year, you sit in a darkened room looking at beautiful Hollywood mansions and people wearing furs and jewels and all of those wonderful things among lovely architecture. Or you’re transported to Russia in the 20s.
Slapstick Festival is basically total escapism, just sitting laughing in a room with a live musical soundtrack, which, again, is such a treat to get to see something where you’re getting not only laughs, but you’re also getting live music played by incredible musicians. It’s two for the price of one.
Slapstick’s slogan this year is: ‘Because laughter is a form of resistance’. What are your thoughts on that, does it resonate with you and do you bring that into your own life and work?
Everyone thinks of Charlie Chaplin as the lovable clown, but his work was incredibly subversive and kind of anti-capitalist. So, you look at things like The Great Dictator and City Lights and, even when it wasn’t explicitly political, quite a lot of slapstick is about the little guy being trampled by the system and getting his revenge. A lot of early slapstick does focus on the more downtrodden members of society – it can be very egalitarian.
I am someone who likes silliness, and in my own comedy, I’m very, very silly. But sometimes you can slip a little barbed comment in underneath, or you can do something that just gently reminds people that all is not okay with the status quo. And that’s what I really enjoy about the slapstick stuff: it isn’t as harmless as it seems to be. Especially because now people think, ‘oh, it’s all from the 30s and things are different now’. But of course, there are horrifying echoes of the 1930s in the current political landscape. In bleak, political times, it’s good to have a laugh, but it’s also good to bear in mind that what unites us is humanity, humour, kindness and empathy – and all of those things that really come through in films that we watch.
One of the events you’re presenting this year is of course Queen of Slapstick: Louise Fazenda – were you already a fan of Louise or have you developed a new-found connection to her work?
I was vaguely aware of her. She featured peripherally in things that I’ve done, because she was in Mack Sennett’s crew – who was one of the huge names in slapstick – but we’ve not hosted an event solely focusing on her before. I’m looking forward to going through Her Torpedoed Love and Hearts and Flowers. But as with all interesting things, I’m going down a real rabbit hole discovering more about her work and who she’s worked with, then I go and find out more about them. It creates a lovely paper trail of delicious crumbs that leads me onto the next thing.
And the other event you’re featuring on shines the spotlight on remarkable female partnerships in comedy. How does it feel to be able to keep the legacy of these classic on-screen female comedians alive?
I’ve discovered a lot of really brilliant female stars that I hadn’t heard of previously, but in Before and Beyond Laurel & Hardy we’re also revisiting some of the female double acts we’ve talked about a few times over the years, like Marion Byron and Anita Garvin, who were meant to be the female answer to Laurel & Hardy.
Over the years, I’ve talked about people like Marion Davis, the Talmadge Sisters, Clara Bow and Louise Brooks and all these incredible women who have sadly become slightly less famous now than they were, because they were all huge at the time. They’re slightly more lost to history than some of their male counterparts.
It’s really interesting how important women were in early Hollywood – they did direct, they did write and they did star, and you know, then we kind of lost that over the years. But now you look at people like Chloe Zhao up for major awards for directing Hamnet. There are so many female directors and women are seizing the reins of power in film again. So it’s quite nice to say to people, ‘This isn’t brand new, it was happening in the early days as well.’
Is there one comedian from any era that you wish you could sit down and have a cup of tea or a glass of wine with, who would it be and why?
Any of the female silent stars of the 1930s. I think my favourite would probably be behind the scenes, actually, so Anita Loos, who was one of the great silent film writers. And then she went on to write the book Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which is one of my favourite books, and inspired one of my favourite movies of all time. She was just a huge gossip, quite bitchy, and she knew everybody. I think that she would be hilarious, and I would love to have a cup of tea with her and find out all about what really went on in Hollywood in the early days.
You’re also busy launching your own tour here in Bristol early February. Let Yourself Go is your 18th solo show and its themes are about embracing change, so has your own creative process changed over the years?
Obviously, I wanted to start the tour off in Bristol, because the Bristol audiences are the best in the world, and the Hen & Chicken is a crucial venue for me – lovely food, a very nice bar and good toilets, which is increasingly important for me.
I definitely do things very differently now, because I used to torture myself for years and years and years, sitting down at a computer, trying to write things and thinking I had to have a script. Now, I write down little keywords because my memory is terrible so I wouldn’t remember everything, but I definitely busk it a lot more.
My self-confidence has massively increased as I’ve got older, which is a lovely thing. Look forward to that, because there are lots of bad things about ageing, but I think you just become very much more confident and quite self-assured about who you are, and less prone to outside influences and things like that. So now I just do things my own sweet way, and I wing it a lot more, and trust that I’ll find funny things I need to say on the night.
You’re about to set off on a huge, rather long tour – what do you love the most (if anything) about touring shows like this, and are there any life hacks you’ve picked up along the way that make life on the road a little easier?
I have an old-lady touring schedule now, with a couple of days off in between shows. I take it very easy and don’t push myself too hard. These days, I go on tour absolutely armed to the teeth with home comforts: I bring my own teabags for special herbal tea and I travel with a jigsaw neatly rolled up so I can take it out anywhere. I also go to a lot of Toby Carveries because they’re reliable; I’ll go around four or five o’clock, which sees me through to the end of the show.
Wherever possible, I try to get a hotel room with a bathtub so I can end the night with a luxurious bubble bath. In the past, I’d have been going out, getting drunk, and discovering the nightclubs of whatever town I was in. Now, I discover garden centres in the afternoon and unwind with a hot bath at night. There are good and bad things in both. When you’re young, you should enjoy yourself to the fullest; later on, you find just as much enjoyment in a hot bath as you once did in a sweaty nightclub.
You’ve contributed a huge amount to Bristol’s cultural scene over the years, often in the realm of championing women – from literature to comedy. What is it about our creative scene here that you particularly like getting your teeth into?
Oh, there’s a vibe like no other. Bristol and Norwich are my two favourite cities in the UK. Bristol has just lovely people and incredible creativity. The Aardman studio is obviously very involved with Slapstick Festival and I would argue that Aardman is one of the greatest ever British contributions to world culture, with such an incredible ethos behind it as well; it’s about nice people making really intricate and well-thought-out-things with lovely, positive messages.
And there’s just so much street art in Bristol as well – everywhere you go in you just see beautiful things that people have created just for the joy of other Bristolians. And the mindset here is not grind set as you get in other cities, it’s a bit more relaxed. Maybe people here have a bit more of a sense of humour about themselves.
Tickets are still available for Slapstick Festival, taking place at various venues from 4-8 February. For more info on Lucy’s events and other shows, visit slapstick.org.uk. Lucy will also perform Let Yourself Go at Hen & Chicken on 6 February, for tickets visit henandchicken.com.
