Artists and Comedians
Mae Martin
London
Mae Martin is a writer and stand-up comedian. Mae trained in improvisation and sketch comedy for four years at the Toronto outpost of the internationally acclaimed comedy institution, The Second City. Notable alumni of Second City in both Toronto and Chicago include Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Steve Carrell, Mike Myers, Dan Aykroyd, Catherine O’Hara, John Candy and Bill Murray.
Performing comedy since she was aged 13, Mae received her first Canadian Comedy Award nomination at 15, and at 16 made her Canadian television debut on The Comedy Network’s Cream of Comedy. Since moving to the UK in 2011, she has established a fervent young following and was awarded Best international Performer at the Brighton Fringe and has been a finalist in The Hackney New Act of the Year Awards, The Musical Comedy Awards and the Amused Moose Laughter Awards.
It was Mae’s appearance as the stand-up guest on Russell Howard’s Good News (BBC3) that first catapulted her into the consciousness of the UK’s online teen community. The clip now has half a million views on YouTube, and Mae has emerged as a bright new role model for nervous teens everywhere. In Mae we now have comedy’s most naturally charismatic young storyteller. She finds her punch lines in thoroughly unlikely places – combining wickedly astute social observation with nostalgic references to her pseudo-anguished past.
After supporting Nina Conti on her UK wide tour in early 2014, Mae remounted her Edinburgh fringe show Slumber Party at The Soho Theatre for two sold out nights which was recorded and released for iTunes the following Autumn and is Mae’s first commercial stand-up release.
Fuelled by the quarter-life anxieties of London’s twenty-somethings, in Slumber Party Mae resurrects the awkward moments of her adolescence. Drawing razor-sharp comparisons between the hopes and aspirations she held in her teens with the social quandaries she copes with in her daily life, Mae paints herself as the innocent trier her audience all aim to be. This is a charm-offensive from a truly masterful anecdotist.
Mae has enjoyed many live appearances on radio throughout 2014, such as performing stand-up for The Phil and Alice Show’s Lolz Lounge for BBC Radio 1 and again for their Live at the Edinburgh Festival feature, as well as Series 2 of live comedy night Sabotage for BBC Radio 4 Extra and again for the third series of Life: An Idiots Guide where Stephen K Amos and some of the comedy circuit’s best stand-ups attempt to unravel the knotty problems of modern life.
Mae is the regular host of cult London hit Popcorn Comedy, currently residing at The Hackney Picturehouse. She has also toured with The New Wave, a compilation of the brightest, most exciting, dynamic and ground breaking comedy performers in the country, produced by The Invisible Dot – producers of highly inventive, often left-field comedy shows. Mae now hosts The Sunday Showwith The Invisible Dot, as well as curating her own monthly stand-up night, For Once in our Terrible Lives, in venues across London.
Mae has written for series 10 of Newsjack on BBC Radio 4 Extra and for Endemol and Beyond’s new all female sketch series Sketch My Life for YouTube.
In 2013, Mae appeared on the second series of ITV2’s comedy panel show Fake Reaction and Channel 4’s 50 Funniest Moments of 2013.
