Lauren Stone @ The Stand
Cool for Cats is an hour of low energy laughs from Sean Lock Award nominee Lauren Stone
In Cool for Cats, Lauren Stone welcomes us into her dream-like, leftfield world. It’s the lowest of low-key and endearingly DIY. Stone is armed with her own lighting (torch) and asks the room for advice on how best she can use her eye contact (none), posture (crouched) and height (medium) to make us feel most comfortable. At one point she even asks us if we know what a shrew is, eager to draw us one in case we don’t, and finally settles on live-illustrating an Italian greyhound, the most nervous of pups, including their wiggly anxiety lines.
Stone’s lovingly lo-fi style is applied to her jokes too. There’s no high stakes or sense of a climax, just a scattershot set of bits which she drifts between. One-liners about animals land nicely, as does the film noir-style shaggy dog story about a beloved children’s character which the comic performs her own fades in and out of.
However, Stone’s charm isn’t quite enough to carry the hour. Her stream of consciousness style lends itself well to her childlike musings but material feels thinly stretched with vast distances between each big laugh. If Stone was more deadpan, the downtime between each gag might hold better, but her bumbling yet giggly demeanour warrants a little more pep and pace in her material. It’s a really promising start for the Sean Lock Award nominee. Her low-lying mischief feels like a new kindred spirit to acts like Simon Munnery, and with a tighter, pacier hour, Stone could go far.
Lauren Stone: Cool for Cats, The Stand (Stand 4), until 13 Aug, 5.25, £5-10