I'm obsessed with Blackpool says Maisie Adam ahead of the Blackpool Comedy Festival

Running between Friday, May 23 and Sunday, June 1, Blackpool Comedy Festival will once again turn the Lancashire town into the comedy capital of the UK.

The finale of the event, Manford’s Comedy Club, is on Saturday, May 31 and sees performances from top comedians Russell Howard, Maisie Adam and Emmanuel Sonubi.

Before her arrival in Blackpool, Northern comedian Maisie spoke to Fylde Coast radio personality Ged Mills all about her upcoming Blackpool gig.

Revealing why she is especially excited for the festival, Maisie said: “I do quite a lot of comedy festivals throughout the year, especially towards the summer but I am obsessed with Blackpool. I used to go every year as a kid and now to be there gigging with acts like this is mega. So I'm going part[ly] for myself, really, rather than anything else but if people want to join me and make an audience, I'd be very grateful.”

The 31-year-old stand up and TV star then went on to speak highly of her fellow comedians taking to the stage with her at the Winter Gardens.

Maisie said: “When you when you get booked for festivals, you always kind of hope that you're going to be on with people who are fun backstage and good on stage and that is exactly what Blackpool's come through with here. Like, I think on the show I'm on, it's Emmanuel Sanubi, Russell Howard and Hayley Ellis and that's like a that's a dream - a dream green room, let alone a dream line up on stage so, yeah, I'm absolutely buzzing for it.”

On that topic, interviewer Ged then brought up the new Amazon series, Last One Laughing, in which 10 comedians had to spend a whole day together without even cracking a smile.

When asked if her backstage experience usually involved all the comedians trying to showoff, Maisie replied; “It's funny. It totally depends who you’e with. Some people are like you'd think they were going out to do some sort of like keynote speech and then others turn up and they're still unzipping their coat and checking their emails as their names being read out to go on stage and they still go out and storm it.

“What's lovely about this group is it's it's made up of like Emmanuel and me, we’ve kind of come through at the same sort of time snd so we've watched each other do the same gigs as we've got to sort of this point; Russell Howard, I can remember going to see when I was at school and just wanting to like watch what he did and now like I did his podcast a couple of months ago and that felt really strange to be like, ‘god, I'm now sat with you chatting to me asking how things are going’. He's still, you know, on top form so it's always great to gig with somebody like that and basically take notes from the side going, ‘oh, how did he do that? How did he do that?’

“And then in a very similar vein, Hayley Ellis is like a circuit legend, you know, because she's won best MC a couple of times now, like for the work that she does in the clubs... I've watched her at gigs that have been, you think, ‘god, how are you going to get anything out of this?’ How are you going to do something here?’ and she somehow manages to take the roof off. She's amazing to watch.”

A few months prior to the Blackpool Comedy Festival, Maisie completed the second leg of her latest stand-up tour ‘Appraisal’ so Ged ended the interview by asking if some of that metrial will make it’s way into her performance at Manford’s Comedy Club.

In response, Maisie said: “Definitely. Definitely. Because we were trying to make Blackpool work for ages and none of the venues were available when I was on the tour so there was a day where I had, I think, Carlisle...and then Liverpool and I was like, well, I could call into Blackpool, really.

“I had a day off [in between] and I was like, can we try and get Blackpool in there and none of the venues that are like the, you know, right sort of size could fit us in. They all were booked in or what have you so I was kind of gutted not to make it but I still went and made a night of it anyway, because it was in November and the illuminations were on so I was like, I'll still go.

“My husband had never been before so we went and we had like a day at the Pleasure Beach and then had a walk along the front. It was great but I was a little bit gutted that I wasn't able to get Blackpool in the tour so hopefully this is kind of making up for it. So, yeah, I'll basically try and cram the best bits of the show into the set.”