Lucy Porter: The Bare Necessities

Lucy Porter performs most of her new show, The Bare Necessities, in front of a huge slide projection of a kitten and two small ducks sitting on a bench. The picture speaks volumes about the show, which will please anybody familiar with her loveable television persona but is unlikely to win her any awards this year (unless there’s an award for the stand-up comedian you’d most like to take home to meet your mum).

Porter is tiny, she’s cute and she tells nice jokes. One of a handful of shows at this year Fringe to take inspiration from the current “credit crunch,” The Bear Necessities is, by the comedian’s own admission, inspired by a longing for a simpler life. There’s a lot of fresh material here, and some sharp satire.

Appropriately enough, there’s real value for money, too. Porter’s breathless, machine-gun delivery ensures that there is probably twice as much comedy in her one-hour show than most comics could squeeze into two. It’s not all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens either, as the generally pleasant tone of her performance throws some of her few darker observations into sharp relief.

With a friendly and engaging stage presence, Porter does what she does very well, and the audience seems to emerge from the Pleasance One bathed in a warm glow. But, a lot like the picture of the kitten and the ducklings, The Bare Necessities doesn’t quite have enough bite to fulfil its comic potential.