Josie Lawrence is supposed to be talking about her new play, Our Lady of Blundellsands, by Jonathan Harvey, who is probably best known for Gimme, Gimme, Gimme. But she gets there by way of a thousand detours, from her first gig in a working men’s club, which she took in order to get an Equity card, through the late 80s, her reign as queen of improv, to Oklahoma!, which she did recently in Chichester. “It was an uber-talented company – young people who could do everything: dancing, singing, acting. It was joyous. I was Mama Josie and they treated me just lovely. I did everything with them. Bowling, parties, days at the beach, karaoke.”
There’s something in this litany of wholesome pursuits that distils the way she talks about her career: an ongoing sense of wonder at how great everyone is, as though she has just fallen fresh on to a stage from space. It’s extremely contagious – after 20 minutes in her company you find yourself thinking the best of the world and eagerly looking forward to Blundellsands, which sounds surreal and perceptive, domestic and tragic, Sunset Boulevard retold by way of Coronation Street. But “delighted ingenue” is an unusual figure on the comedy circuit, which tends to demand something a bit more savage. Lawrence – who prefers “performer” to “comic” – has always been unusual.
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