Lucy Montgomery is an established TV comic with starring roles in Tittybangbang and Bellamy's People. Now – in a reversal of the usual career curve – she turns to standup, with this week-long try-out of her first solo show. As you'd expect from a performer who started in theatre, with the clownish outfit Population 3, Montgomery appears as a collection of broadly drawn characters. Some are memorably silly and some we barely get to know in a show that whets, rather than satisfies, the appetite.
Subtle, it ain't: Montgomery is a goon, and her characters are best at their daftest. The largest part is played by her Broadway diva Candi Karmel, all sequinned self-regard and a Noo Yawk accent so chewy you could lose teeth in it. The points are scored fairly easily, but there's fun to be had watching Candi hauling herself on to the piano to strike a glamorous pose – then falling off. Better still is Montgomery's incongruous Spanish snack vendor, touting banilla and vanana ice-cream in an accent loopier than a Dali canvas.
The show needs to find its theatrical feet. Its televisual rhythm founders on some lumpy scene changes. And its unrelated sketches need a binding agent. That's hinted at when Montgomery's Mona Lisa (showing off the facial expressions that weren't painted) namechecks a previous character, and the show's parts momentarily acknowledge the whole. More development of the weaker roles is also needed – the mouthy cabbie, say, or the DVD hawker. But overall, Montgomery's brazen tomfoolery is appealing.
