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“II’m doing good for myself, gang!” That’s quite an understatement. Laura Smith at Hackney Empire is more than just a comedy show, it’s a triumphal procession for east Londoners returning to home turf. Her rise has been dizzying if not without its fair share of detours, with the former teacher winning a Funny Women award six months after her first gig, appearing at Live at the Apollo two weeks after her treatment ended for stage 3 cancer – and now a fixture on the nation’s television screens. Here’s the first live tour to show the uninitiated what it’s all about.
It’s primarily a comic book with a twist and a very sure popular streak to back it up. Smith knows who she is, a crazy working-class woman who has gambled and won, but only after she’s paid her dues raising children, gossiping in staff rooms and keeping things going through the buy-now, pay-later lenders . That’s the hinterland painted in Living My Best Life, which focuses on blunt critiques of anything the 42-year-old deems lofty or overrated. Her daughter’s concern about boundaries? I’m handing over. Mental health? “Everyone has mental health these days!” And as for the holidays? Provide Smith with a comfortable hospital stay at any time.
It’s not a new attitude – but Smith isn’t trying to be original. Her workplace back-chat routine is awfully nice, while also relying on familiar generalizations – men do this, women do that. A quarter of an hour of bluesy humor towards the end is vividly realized, but its comedy of unglamorous middle-aged sex is long overdue. There are cruel jokes about fat people – not entirely redeemed by Smith, who cracks them partly at her own expense.
Fortunately, she usually refreshes ordinary worldviews with the power of a bubbly personality and some excellent material—like the joke that imagines her menopausal flushes as a slow-motion embarrassment of indiscretion in her 20s, or the stage persona of the moodiness she portrays , with only the facial expression of a dumb student meeting his teacher on the street. The cheers, the love, the dancing in the aisles isn’t just because Smith is a hometown girl, it’s because she’s a very hit, good-time comedian.
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