Isy Suttie - The Suttie Show

As she bounces on to the stage with the sunny enthusiasm of a wet-behind-the-ears primary schoolteacher, there’s little sign that Isy Suttie is suffering from first performance nerves. The small, hot portakabin is almost full with eager punters, suggesting that Suttie’s turn on the most recent series of Peep Show is already helping to boost her audience. But fans of that programme’s caustic pessimism may find the tone of The Suttie Show something of a surprise.

It’s more whimsy than misery, with a potentially mawkish theme: “follow your dreams.” Thankfully, Suttie is too clever to descend in to sentimentality. After discussing her failures to realise her childhood ambitions, Suttie plays a range of characters, who are all variously trying and failing to follow this Disneyesque philosophy. There’s Yvonne Winehouse, sister of Amy, who wants to be the first “musical health and safety officer”; 12-year-old Ben from Bradford, whose dream of becoming a multi-talented entertainer is unsullied by his obvious lack of any talent; and Mr Mississippi, a blues singer whose one and only dream is to “get the ladies in to bed.”

They’re a convincingly varied bunch, all played with effusive charm. Suttie whips out her guitar and various toys to aid the performance, adding to the sense of improvised, childlike fun. Some of the best moments come when she drops the characters and just plays herself, like when she reads a slightly purple love story she wrote as a teenager, in a cut-glass Radio 4 accent. A poky portakabin surely can’t hold this kind of talent much longer.