By Lisa Clark
Well I just saw my favourite show at the Festival so far, Maisie Adams – Buzzed. It’s early days I know and a big call, but it’s such a joy to experience a new stand-up comedian with confidence and enthusiasm who can wiz me off into their world and hit me right in the solar plexis.
Her energy is way up as she bounds onto the stage, ready to give the audience her all. Maisie does no nonsense standup with stories from her life that she has turned into brilliant comedy for us. This was her Australian debut of a show she’s been performing since Edinburgh in August last year, so it’s finely tuned and bedded in. There is a sense that she really knows what she’s about and won’t let us down. I loved the moment she got her first big laugh across the whole room and she said, quietly, almost to herself, “We’re off”, and we were. She kept that laughter rolling and the audience in the palm of her hand.
At her show’s heart there are two main stories. She mines her recent engagement and wedding plans for comedy gold expanding on the ridiculousness of wedding traditions through the eyes of a modern woman. Timeless comedy material but made fresh by an intelligent comedian experiencing them for the first time. The second and deeper story was about her lifelong passion for playing and watching football (ie soccer), who would’ve thought I’d be this excited about a comedy festival show that devotes such a large clump to sports and that it would make me cry? Her finale lifted the roof off the room.
Woven around these big stories were smaller warm tales about her life and family, such as her relationships with her mum and beloved granny and of course there was the inevitable Covid gear.  But my goodness it was great gear and Maisie had the BEST impression of post-covid chit chat. So. Are you curious about her hair then? She knows you are and this show will reveal that story too. Her comedy instincts are effortlessly awesome.  The hour zips by and it’s over too quickly. By the end of her Melbourne debut, I feel like I know Maisie and that she’s a new mate I look forward to seeing again.
You may have seen Maisie Adams brightening up many a British TV panel show, like 8 Out of 10 Cats do Countdown, The Last Leg or QI. She is becoming well known over there and she is disarmingly delighted and surprised to have sold out her whole show run (in an admittedly small room and short run) on the other side of the world.
They’ve had to put her in a bigger room for a bonus show on April 22. Get tickets while you can.
Maisie Adam’s Extra show of Buzzed is at 6pm in the Lower Town Hall on Sat April 22
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2023/shows/maisie-adam#
Maisie is also appearing in a group show The Best of The Edinburgh Fest at The Capitol, Every night for the rest of the Festival.
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2023/shows/best-of-the-edinburgh-fest