About Maisie Adam
Maisie Adam is the young female comedian from Yorkshire who’s relaxed, self deprecating charm and anecdotal wit has quickly won her praise up and down the country. Within just 18 months of starting out in live comedy, she had won the biggest nationwide stand-up newcomer competition So You Think You’re Funny? (becoming the fourth woman to have done so in its 30 years) and has opened shows for major comedians such as Lloyd Griffith, Bec Hill and Gavin Webster.
After previewing her first stand-up show “Living On The Edge” at the Ilkley Fringe, Maisie took her debut show on tour to theatres, festivals and comedy nights across the UK. Receiving positive reviews from runs at Bath Comedy Festival, Hastings Fringe Comedy Festival, Southend Fringe and Guildford Fringe, the show was then nominated for Best New Comedy at the 2017 Brighton Fringe.
Maisie has since appeared on The Stephen K Amos Talk Show, SkyArts and BBC Radio 2. She has appeared alongside Josie Lawrence and Dan Antopolski and in 2018 was nominated for the Best Newcomer award at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. For her debut show ‘Vague’ she won the coveted Amused Moose National Comic Award. So the future for Maisie Adam is looking far from vague. In fact, we’d say it looks certain to be bright!
WATCH MAISIE ADAM’S VAGUE
Northerner and self-confessed “Slave to the Sesh” Maisie Adam relays her experiences of navigating the recklessness of youth whilst dealing with an epilepsy diagnosis that required her to be a ‘Sensible Susan’. From small town roots to terrible dancing millennials, Vague is a coming of age comic tale that’s refreshingly distinct.
Reviews and Awards
Maisie Adam nominated for Best Newcomer in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2018. Edinburgh. She crowned winner of the 2018 Amused Moose New Comic Award and So You Think You’re Funny? competition 2017.
‘Adam exudes an appealing, quirky energy, and is clearly a natural wit’
Chortle
‘She’s all confidence; both in her ability to command a room and in her material, and it’s entirely justified’
The WeeReview
‘This is a name to watch!’
Official Buxton Fringe Review
‘There’s something incredibly watchable about Adam – whether it’s her effervescence onstage, finding jokes in the minutiae of life or her fantastic physicality’
The WeeReview
Maisie Adam Tickets
Info on Maise Adam’s upcoming gigs and live shows can be found here
Can’t wait to see her live? Stream her full show now
Biography
Clearly proud of her Yorkshire roots, Maisie Adam spent her childhood growing up in the small town of Pannal in West Yorkshire. She was first motivated to enter the industry, as many comics are, via a more traditional acting route. She tells Voice Mag: “I trained as an actor, and I always thought that was what I wanted to be. However I soon realised that as much as I enjoyed it, whatever project you were working on relies on so many other people to pull their weight for it to be a success. I’ve always had a strong work ethic for things I’m passionate about, and I found myself often turning up to rehearsals on-time, knowing my lines, and with an enthusiasm to work but I was often the only one. Or even with the best group of actors, if a script is rubbish or the director is making a hash of it, there’s only so much you can do. With stand-up comedy, it’s all on you. If no one laughs, there’s only one reason and it’s because your joke isn’t funny or you even if it is, you didn’t deliver it right, or get the crowd on-side for it. I like that responsibility; it means you never get complacent.”
It was whilst at university that she discovered she had a knack for live comedy, after working on a module in the Italian form of comedy theatre, Commedia Dell’arte. Speaking to Exposed Magazine in 2017 she explains: “The tutor literally sprang it upon us by saying: “At the end of this lesson you’re all going to get up and perform one minute of stand-up comedy”. We were obviously all petrified, but because we were all in the same boat we just went for it, and I absolutely loved it. I made that one minute into did at the Student Union. Then I made that five minutes into half an hour and performed at a fundraising event held at the Otley Labour Rooms. Then that 30 minutes became an hour, and that hour became Living On The Edge!”
After graduating without an agent, Maisie had little option but to moved back home to her Mum and Dad’s up in Yorkshire and work numerous temp jobs. It was a fateful decision, because it was back home where she saw her local fringe festival was doing a call-out for artist submissions. She tells Brighton Journal: “It said something along the lines of “We’re looking for all types of performances; music, poetry, plays – even stand-up comedy!” and I looked at the last one and just thought “Why not?” So I applied for a space in the programme and they gave me a slot! I wrote as much as I could, including scribbled bits here and there of observations that I’d made, and collated it all together. I memorised it, printed some flyers, handed them out anywhere I could and then just turned up and did the show. It went surprisingly well considering most of the people there were just people from my village, who couldn’t believe I’d been so naive as to attempt an hour of stand-up comedy! I cringe when I watch it back now, but it gave me such a buzz at the time that I sent the clip to every promoter I could and booked myself in to open mics across the country.”
After winning ‘So You Think You’re Funny’ in 2017 Maisie found herself gigging in London 3 or 4 times a week. Her brother had just started uni at Brighton so it made sense to move down south with him and make the most of Brighton’s great comedy scene.
And so what’s next? “I’m definitely going to go back to Edinburgh again next year, though I haven’t decided what my show will be about yet! I’d also like to get some more TV work, and explore comedy in different formats; podcasts, sketches, improv… there’s so much more I want to explore!”
Get More Maisie Adam
Want more of Maisie Adam? You’re in luck – her full stand-up comedy special is available to watch on NextUp – a digital comedy club where you can stream instantly over 120 comedy specials from some of the exciting names in comedy. Oh, and there’s a 7 day free trial.