My Granddad used to play a trick on me when I was younger. He’d ask me, “If very cold water is iced water, then what’s very cold ink?” And I, being a bit of a swot and a good girl, would duly reply with “Iced ink.” It wasn’t until a little while later that he revealed to me what he’d been doing. Say ‘iced ink’ out loud. How mean.
The moral of my story is: never underestimate an octogenarian. I know it isn’t normally polite to discuss a lady’s age, but Lynn Ruth Miller proudly tells her audience that she’s 80. Honestly, if I get to 80 and I still have legs like hers, I’ll be bragging about it myself. Her ‘Granny’s Gone Wild’ show, seen at the Soho Theatre on a busy Friday night, is a mix of comedy and song – and she doesn’t miss a single line, beat or cue.
Lynn Ruth isn’t the type of gran you see knitting Shreddies in adverts. She’s full of surprises. Her very first song of the night involved stripping, and there can’t be many other comedy shows in which ‘audience participation’ descends into a sanitary pad throwing fight. I’m sure she must be used to return fire catching her on the head by now, but it was a strange sight to behold.
Any notions of ‘sweet old lady’ that some in the crowd might have had were hastily dismissed – the occasional well-timed F-word and jokes that cut a little close to the bone had several jaws hanging open in disbelief. You just don’t expect someone you see as a matriarchal figure to suddenly turn eating a jacket potato into something seriously crude. Even I was staring uncomfortably at the floor at several points.
The show felt quite short and I suppose that’s to be expected, but not for the reasons you might think. Lynn Ruth is a woman who’s making the most of every single opportunity in life, so I like to imagine she left us early to try and get into G-A-Y.
Follow Lynn Ruth Miller on Twitter @lynnruth.
