“Do I like myself?” That’s the inquiry driving Susan Calman’s new show, Lady Like, although it comes in and out of focus amid the low-level gossip about BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz, filming documentaries for TV and honeymoon anecdotes. But if it isn’t as unflinching in the face of mental-health problems as Kim Noble’s show, upstairs in the same building, the Glaswegian comic does volunteer an endearingly frank account of her battle to accept herself.
It’s a magpie set that doesn’t zero in on Calman’s self-unease, but uses it as a (sometimes tenuous) conceptual thread. She starts – too obvious a bid for sympathy, this – by regaling us with stories of bad gigs gone by. Then there’s the poll that found her Britain’s fourth favourite lesbian comedian, and a punchline-free anecdote about once being mistaken for Rhona Cameron.
It’s one thing not being loved by the public; being hated is another thing entirely. Calman had a nervous breakdown last year, she tells us, having struggled to adjust to her rising profile, and the abuse that came with it. What compounded the problem, she says, is that the haters weren’t telling her anything she didn’t already tell herself.
The standout moments find Calman really inhabiting the character of a woman on the edge, only ever a flicker of self-control away from an antisocial outburst. (One compelling example finds her freaked out on a shopping trip by all the people tweeting: “I’ve just seen Susan Calman.”) At its weakest, like the routine about skyping cats, the material self-consciously strains to show how wacky Calman is. At its best, it says, simply: “This is what it’s like inside my head.” It is a compelling and not unfamiliar place to spend time.
• Until 15 February. Box office: 020-7478 0100. Venue: Soho theatre, London. Then touring.
