Lucy Porter: People Person

The Stand One

Until August 26

★★★★★

THE perfectly circular comedy routine that goes out with a killer punchline is easier to describe than to write, but Lucy Porter delivers one in this winning return to Fringe comedy after an absence of two years. Even better, it's fizzing with inventive one-liners and bitchy asides about people you feel you know because they're on the telly. Richard Madeley, Russell Kane and Top Shop boss Sir Philip Green get the treatment, as the mumsy-looking Porter flexes her poison-tipped talons. And mumsy she really is. Her two recent Fringe no-shows were a result of giving birth and getting married, both subjects which feature here (the sequence about what happens when you say "abortion" in the John Lewis children's department would make anyone's 2012 Fringe highlights selection). Notionally, however, the show is about friendship and the reviews people leave on the Argos website – though it would spoil the surprise to say how those link up. A treat from start to finish, made even better by its performance in the Fringe's most atmospheric comedy venue.