Jenny Eclair was last seen touring Britain with the stage-show of Grumpy Old Women, at the ripe old age of 46. Now she is back, dedicating this whole solo show to the woes of ageing. That is the joke, of course - that a woman in her prime should be so horrified at losing her youth. And it is hard to imagine anyone making greater comic capital out of midlife alarm than Eclair. But whether she is sending it up or celebrating it, her portrait of slave-to-the-hormones, keep-young-and-beautiful womanhood can get a little relentless.
Not that she is submissive to that agenda. Eclair is as aggressively improper as when she won her Perrier award 12 years ago. Stalking around a chaise longue in glittering heels, looking like "a weird cross between Marjorie Dawes and Su Pollard", she positively bear-hugs the neuroses of middle age. The material is self-absorbed, unapologetically vulgar and carried off with a vicious glee. "Do you know," she asks, feigning concern, "how many middle-aged men go out for a pint of milk and never come home?" And then, at a furious pitch: "NOT ENOUGH!"
This is only the third date of her tour and the set will improve when she cuts looser from a tight script. At the moment, it is still an accomplished and funny tour of Eclair's mind, a mine of great jokes. Like this whiplash of a quip about her mum coming to stay: "Can you imagine if she was there from the moment you woke up till the moment you punched yourself unconscious at night?" With one-liners that good, Eclair needn't worry about losing her faculties just yet.
· At the Ipswich Corn Exchange today. Box office: 01473 433133. Then touring.
