When comedian Lucy Porter was trolled on social media for ‘letting herself go’ she didn’t cry over the ageist insult. Instead, she felt relieved.
Having launched her career at the height of '90s ladette culture, she was exhausted by the ‘minx’ persona she felt she’d had to keep up.
“People always talked about how I looked, that I was quite coquettish,” the 53-year-old mother-of-two tells Ateh Jewel on this week's HELLO! Second Act podcast. “And then a review for a stand up show described me as 'mumsy'. Initially I was like ‘how very dare you!’.
“Then I thought, 'I quite like not being a minx. 'Mumsy' feels powerful - someone who's created life. I'm going to embrace this stage persona'.
“When I was younger, I was never quite sure what I was. Now I come on and I'm in charge. I’m menopausal, so it could get ugly if things don't go my way.
“Audiences really respond to that. ‘Now we understand, you're a terrifying middle aged woman’.”
The comment lit something inside her professionally. After years of imposter syndrome, Lucy who has acted in EastEnders and opposite Christian Slater in the stage version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, views her ascending years as a deadline to get life done.
“Since I turned 40, I've written a play, a book, a radio series. I've done all these things I’d have been too scared to do when I was younger. Part of me laments things that I didn't do. But then a larger part of me thinks, well, thank goodness I'm actually getting it done. Clock is ticking. Let's crack on.”
With her latest book, Middle-Aged Women Get Sht Done: A Manifesto (or a Cry for Help?), she took inspiration from her friends, and has become the hilarious voice of the sandwich generation. “They are all so phenomenal, coping with all of this stuff. The book reflects what we're all going through and most importantly, I can have a massive moan. You don't have to be positive all the time. It's exhausting.”
The menopause in her fifties came as a shock to her, as did the decline of her eyesight and an ADHD diagnosis. But she looks to her role models, Madonna, Kylie and the Spice Girls to encourage her to keep wearing sequins. With age has come reflection, and an apology, for those women she poked fun at in her earlier years during a "culture of slagging off other women".
“The Spice Girls were huge when I was in my twenties. I was quite hard on Geri and I regret every second of that."
Middle-Aged Women Get Sht Done: A Manifesto (or a Cry for Help?), published by Wildfire, is out now.
Listen to the Second Act podcast, now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts and Youtube.
