Judith Lucy's Not Getting Any Younger

She might not be getting any younger, but after 20 years Judith Lucy's getting funnier.

Well, maybe not funnier, exactly – she's always been one of the nation's best stand-ups, after all – but having some time off from the stage has resulted in one of her most, well, show-like shows. Judith Lucy's Not Getting Any Younger is tightly scripted, confidently performed and, while covering some familiar ground (romantic failure, professional fear, family, Catholicism), manages to find new ways to tickle the same funnybones. Her routine about travelling through Italy with her elderly birth mother is worth the ticket price in itself, but there's no dead wood in the entire performance.

Because the show doesn't rest quite so heavily on her hilariously caustic persona it means that her trademark sarcastic asides about her own performance ("Satire! Take that, Catholic Church – oh, what sacred cow will she skewer next?") have more weight and impact. That said, she's still not afraid to make the audience uncomfortable (and a parenthetical note for squeamish punters: do not, for heaven's sake, turn up late – and don't sit in the front row if you're under 30, unless you're prepared to answer questions regarding what the bloody hell Gen Y think they're doing).

The highs are perhaps not quite as squirm-inducingly high as with I Failed!, her hilarious/agonising exploration of her ill-starred career on 2Day FM, but a more confident Lucy is, oddly enough, an even more formidable comedic presence. Those singing lessons really aren't paying off, though.

Read our interview with Judith Lucy about Judith Lucy's Not Getting Any Younger

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