Posted in Upcoming Comedians

Mae Martin

“I’m doing a lot of writing, I’m pitching a lot of stuff, just trucking along, just trying not to get a day job. I’m trying so hard not to get a day job.”

Introducing Mae Martin, a Canadian born, Britain based standup comedian who’s been working the UK standup circuit for several years. Nominated for two Canadian comedy awards, winner of ‘Best International Performer’ at Brighton Fringe festival, and a recent appearance on Russell Howard’s Good News, Mae is looking forward to a bright future in British comedy. Laughing Stock caught up with her.

Mae Martin“I dropped out of school when I was about 15, and started doing comedy professionally. I’m not really qualified to do anything else so it’d better work out” says Martin. “It was kind of like a liberal utopia that I grew up in. I didn’t realise at the time but looking back, I was just so lucky, my parents were so liberal and cool.”

Martin moved over to England because of family and a surprising appreciation for English weather. “My dad’s English, so I had a passport, which helped. And a lot of people in Toronto were moving to New York and then a couple of them were moving here.” says Martin.  “I love it here, I love the food, I love the pie, I love the lack of sunlight; I thought, get me some of that.”

Martin performs traditional standup, interspersed with comedic musical songs she plays accompanied by her guitar. “I do a mix of songs and standup. Recently I’ve been really enjoying doing just standup. My new shows are a lot about being a teenager and the drama of being a teenage girl and how much I miss that intensity” says Martin. When asked about her guitar playing, she admits it’s not something she pursues. “I sort of plateaued skillswise when I was about 14, and I haven’t learned any new chords in a long time. I love doing music, I get pretty emotional and play pretty deep songs in my room sometimes”she said.

Martin has performed all over the UK, from Brighton to Liverpool to Edinburgh. “Anytime you go to a small town or something, I get a bit nervous to do gay stuff or political stuff but I find more and more if you give people the benefit of the doubt I’m always pleasantly surprised. I think I’ve been really lucky, I don’t think I’ve ever been heckled.”

Martin spent a large part of her life honing her comedic talent in her home country of Canada. “In Canada people never heckle, they just are so silent and polite and they just clap politely. And in England people are way more vocal, they might say something and contribute, but I’ve never had anyone shout anything mean at me.”

So what is the future for Mae Martin? “My dream is that I could write for television and write for radio, and then have the luxury of taking my time to- every year or 2 years- craft a new hour of standup, tour it and do a DVD of it and stuff. I don’t think I ever want to give up doing live stuff, that feedback is really addictive and it’s amazing.”

Check out Martin’s live schedule at ‘maemartin.ca’

 

Posted in Upcoming Comedians

Mark Smith

“I used to feel my bottom lip going, like I was going to cry”

mark smithLook out for this man- five years into his career in comedy, Mark Smith has seen so much success- but I bet you still don’t know who he is.

One of posh schooling’s finest funny boys, Mark found that he is a big fan of comedy after visiting a friend at  his university, and getting more out of the experience than he bargained for.

“I ended up writing sketches with him and Simon Bird and I thought Ah, this is quite cool- I might try this.”
Inspired by all the laughs, Mark went back to his own university and performed for the first time in the spotlight.
“I was terrible, obviously. Everyone is when they start. When I used to do public speaking I would feel my bottom lip going, like I was going to cry.”

Was that enough to put him off? Hell, no. Self-proclaimed sadistic at the start of his career, Mark got back up on the stage despite his fright and, luckily for us, grabbed a mic.

“I liked it enough to try it again. Within a year I’d done about 30 gigs- I wasn’t very good at anything else so I thought why not carry on?”

So what does Mark actually do now to try and break through to our funny bones?

“We do a double act, the other guy is called Max Dickins and we performed at Edinburgh in 2011. To be honest: now it’s just a podcast every couple of weeks on iTunes.

“We just talk sh*t for about half an hour. It’s quite nice- it’s a laugh.

“At the minute, though, I’m writing my first hour for Edinburgh this year- it’s quite stressful but it’s quite exciting as well. A whole hour on stage just you and a microphone seems so daunting.”

After appearing on Russell Howard’s Good News and being involved in the scripting, filming and editing of an impressive number of comedy programmes and appearances, what more can Mark do in taking the comedy scene by storm?

“The overall goal is to one day have my own tour. Just have my own little thing that I can go wherever and just do that.  I’d like to do it properly and have a mini-bus, like a party bus.

“I know it sounds soppy but I’d just like to be a better standup.”

Skillful standup and podcast pro; Mark loves the travelling part of the business and the varying crowds around the country.

“It’s good because you have such different audiences in different parts of the country. In smaller places they’re much more grateful, much more up for it and they’re a better crowd because of it.”
So, watch out fellow comedians, Mark Smith is out to win it all.

Follow him @marksmithcomedy.

Posted in Upcoming Comedians

James Acaster

James AcasterIf you haven’t been acquainted with James Acaster’s comedy yet, you soon will be. Since starting his comedy career back in 2008, James has moulded himself into an engaging and exciting   comedian, performing all over the UK and firmly establishing himself as one of the most intriguing and original voices of the new comic generation.

A self confessed show off, James Acaster first got into standup after his music career fell through. “I got quite bored. I used to be in a band and when the band stopped I started doing standup. It was just a way of filling the evening and not being bored. The more I did it the more I enjoyed it and it kind of took over.”

Influenced by comedians such as Eddie Izzard and Daniel Kitson; James has found that the more he performs the more he has enjoyed being part of the comedy world. “It’s exciting just creating something a bit different; being able to create your own world and start writing all these jokes that are fitting together in some way, to make up a little world of your own that people can enter into and inhabit as an audience.”

Acaster was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award after he performed a string of events at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Speaking about his time at the festival he said: “The festival was stressful and long but all in all it’s a mixed experience. You’ll have some of the best gigs you’ve had all year you’ll have some of the toughest ones. It’s just a different crowd every night and you’ve got to take each show on its own individual merit and make sure you give them your best every night.”

Speaking on the state of the industry, James Acaster believes that the comedy world is open to anyone but it is self awareness that separates the boys from the men. “It’s probably fairly straight forward to make a living out of but it’s very hard to get good at and make a mark. Most comics are naturally funny and naturally witty, but I think self-awareness is the most crucial thing and it’s more important for a comic to be aware of how they come across and understand themselves on stage rather than being clever. The main thing that most comics have in common is this self awareness and understanding of themselves.”

Despite the new influx of comedians, morale in the standup world is as high as ever and standup comedians are keen to support others. “Most comedians tend to get on very well with each other and if there’s any competition, the competition only serves to make you write better and not become lazy.”

“Most acts are obsessed with constantly honing and getting better because it doesn’t really ever stop. You always want to improve.”

Follow James on Twitter @JamesAcaster

Posted in Upcoming Comedians

Here come the girls

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The Birthday Girls are a sketch trio with high hopes. Sketch comedy is set to make a big comeback and take this years Edinburgh Festival by storm. But it’s been a long time coming…

Television has always been the platform of choice for sketch comedy. As far back as the 1970s and 80s, acts such as The Two Ronnies and Monty Python’s Flying Circus performed their routines to a huge UK audience. But it was only around the turn of the millennium that contemporary live sketch really began to take off. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival was host to an influx of sketch comedy and recently a TV programme; BBC3’s Live at the Electric, focused almost entirely on live acts.

One of these acts – LadyGarden – propelled five quirky girls from Manchester into the spotlight. Having enjoyed relative success playing to crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe, the unusual and sometimes slightly disturbing humour of the all-female sketch troupe was broadcast to the nation.

After going through a ‘transitional period’, two of the girls left. The remaining members; Beattie, Camille and Rose have reinvented themselves, taking on the new name of Birthday Girls.

They met at Manchester University and all three knew they wanted to go into comedy, they just weren’t sure how to do it.

“We wanted to stand on stage and make people laugh, but we were too scared to do it on our own, so we formed a sketch group. That way we could blame each other if people didn’t find us funny.

It was pretty easy to get into the sketch comedy business. Anyone can call themselves a sketch comedian. Making any money from it is a different story.”

The girl’s humour can be described as unorthodox. Words they use to describe themselves on their website include ‘bracelet’ and ‘mini-quiche’.

Many of their sketches involve surreal characters and situations and are often rather unsettling…but in a funny way.

One of their sketches centres around a middle-class cocktail party. What seems an ordinary setting soon changes when the guests start spitting blood. It soon transpires that the host has run out of ice-cubes and has instead put broken glass in their drinks because ‘it looks like ice’.

As can be expected, the Birthday Girls sense of humour doesn’t always go down as well as they hope. But then again they are often surprised at how their act is received by the audience.

“Usually the gigs you dread the most are the ones that turn out the best. Once we went to a village in the middle of nowhere and were told that we would be performing in front of elderly farmers. We thought they were going to get the pitchforks out when we came on in leotards doing an interpretive dance, but they bloody loved it. One of the best gigs ever.” Whether their art is agreeable or not, the girls definitely can’t be accused of having low hopes for the future of sketch comedy. On the contrary they believe it will become an unstoppable force;

“It’s going to take over the world, replacing all other forms of entertainment and probably infiltrating government.” The Birthday Girls will be making their debut performance at the Edinburgh Festival later this year.

You can follow the Birthday Girls on Twitter @BdayGirlsComedy.