Laura Lexx @ Just the Tonic, The Mash House

A strong sophomore show from Laura Lexx

Review by Ben Venables | 23 Aug 2016

Laura Lexx continues to forge her own path with the comedy of contentment. She's happily married, wondering if to start a family and has an inspired routine on the archaeological layers of crud that reside in her vacuum cleaner. Fans of her debut show, Lovely, won't be disappointed by her sophomore hour, which sees Lexx again mining the David Attenborough collection for material.

She's an alarmingly competent stand-up; her presence and delivery is faultless and she doesn't miss a beat when a lady nips to the loo, switching a factoid from the aforementioned Attenborough sketch on lions, to exactly the percentage of the show the weak bladdered would miss.

It's very telling though that when she branches out even a little the show becomes of far greater interest, even just when filtering her perspective on marriage through the spikiness of someone who has listened to a lot of male comics drone on about their wives in unimaginative and retrograde routines. Likewise, a video of her putting a heckler in his place, which went viral earlier in the year, isn't touched on as much as she perhaps could do. And so she only really scratches the surface of her insightful comments on simultaneous online popularity and shaming.

Not all comedy has to come through some torturous experience and its most popular current forms tend to focus on the sort of relatable material that someone with Lexx's comedic skills has going spare. She is so damn likeable too. But as she steps forward on her own path, there is just a slight sense of someone holding back, who hasn't quite tapped into the rich potential that's so obviously there. 


Laura Lexx: Tyrannosaurus Lexx, Just the Tonic at The Mash House (Just The Attic), 4-28 Aug (not 15), 2.20 pm, £5/PWYW.