Maisie Adam - Whatsherface?
For all her faux rage at the inconsequential, she's the sort of person you'd happily spend time with - the sort of comic who spreads cheer, not bile.
Back in the day, a typical comedy gig would feature a twenty-minute warm-up by an up-and-coming comic, followed by the star turn after the interval. Increasingly, however, we are seeing comedians providing their own warm-up. I'm guessing Maisie Adam has done her time in the spot – she certainly comes across as assured in the role.
"You are the weirdest audience of the tour," she insisted.
Perhaps it's something she says to everyone, but the meat-based heckles did seem unique to the evening. Farmers, fishmongers and financial advisers all threw their hats in the ring, frequently talking over one another as Adam did her best to plough a comedy furrow.
"I feel like a supply teacher that's lost control of the class," she said, while all the while marshalling her material with uncanny expertise.
There's no planning for an audience shouting, as one, the word "Crabs", and so no doubting Adam's ability to riff on her feet. I've read, in reviews of previous shows, that her crowd work sometimes eclipses the scripted material to follow, but that seems harsh to me. Whether passing judgement on David and Diane's relationship or dissing Rachel's track record on plant disease, it's a different kind of comedy that relies on a reciprocal warmth and an acknowledgement of spontaneity. We laugh exactly because she really has just made that gag up on the spot, and is all the funnier for it.
After the break, we get the show as advertised. It focuses very heavily on her relationship with her parents, having had to move in with them. There's a warmth and authenticity to the routine, notwithstanding it's one she prepared earlier. Her mum may well come in for a ribbing about the cup storage regime, but it's done with such evident affection, we find ourselves laughing with, rather than at, the object of her ridicule. There's bags of stagecraft going on here. She ruddy well knows a large part of the audience will drink tea in hot weather. It gives her the perfect opportunity to burst with splenetic fury at their foolishness, in a move that Stewart Lee would have been proud of.
Otherwise her strongest material is rooted in what feels like truth, be that her dad's insistence on Movie Night, her mum's inability to recall names, or her nan waking up to the sight of a donkey. Some of the material is slight, and some of it telegraphed, but she seems such a lovely person, we were happy to forgive that she has sold her soul to Asda. It's telling that the one routine which doesn't really work is a rather mean-spirited takedown of a typical best man speech. Granted she claims sympathy for anyone not schooled in the art of stand-up, but that's having your (wedding) cake and eating it. She presented an archetype rather than the truth, and that was a pity.
Far better was her moving tribute to her dad and the thirty-seven comedians who weren't invited to her wedding, and hats off to her for leaving in the bit where her mum messes up the best visual gag of the night. Maisie Adam is the sort of comic who spreads cheer, not bile. For all her faux rage at the inconsequential, she's the sort of person you'd happily spend time with even without all the jokes. They may be smile-funny rather than belly-laugh-funny but add those jokes to the mix, and a warm, cuddly, funny night is assured
