Maisie Adam

A first gig in Ilkley, October 2016

Maisie Adam was born on 24 January 1994 in Pannal, a village on the southern edge of Harrogate in North Yorkshire. She went to St Aidan's Church of England High School, where she was head girl, had two spells with the National Youth Theatre in 2010 and 2012, and took a degree in acting and community theatre at East 15 Acting School, graduating in 2016. Stand-up came after the training rather than instead of it: her first gig was on 13 October 2016, on the fringe programme attached to the Ilkley Literature Festival.

The climb from there was unusually quick. In 2017 she won So You Think You're Funny? at the Edinburgh Fringe, the long-running new-act competition, and in 2018 took the Amused Moose National New Comic Award. Her first solo hour, Vague, played the 2018 Fringe and was nominated for best newcomer at that year's Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Hang Fire followed in 2019 and toured the UK and Europe into 2020, when the circuit shut.

She has juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, diagnosed when she was 14. She married Mike Dobinson on 10 June 2023 and lives in Brighton.

Appraisal, and a special filmed a few miles from home

Appraisal was the show that moved her from clubs to theatres. It opened at Reading Concert Hall on 17 September 2024 and ran through that autumn, framed as a performance review of her first years in comedy and filled out with turning 30, her marriage, the question of children, and friends settling into conventional adult lives. Reviewing the Clapham Grand date on 21 October 2024, Chortle's Steve Bennett gave it three and a half stars, singling out the crowd work — quick comic caricatures of audience members, delivered with what he called unaffected mateyness — while calling the hour cheerful if insubstantial and short on the self-examination the title promised.

The tour was filmed at Harrogate Theatre, close to where she grew up, and broadcast as a 90-minute special on Sky Comedy on 7 December 2024. That recording remains the only full-length document of her stand-up.

Alongside the touring she has built a steady podcast presence: That's a First! with Tom Lucy, running since December 2019, Big Kick Energy with Suzi Ruffell since 2023, and Remember Me? with Scott Bryan.

Series 20, and the three-way tiebreak

Television arrived first in the form of panel shows — Mock the Week, QI, Have I Got News for You, Would I Lie to You?, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown — plus narration duties on The Cabins across 2021 and 2022, and an acting turn as Siouxsie Sioux in Urban Myths in 2018. Useful work, and the kind that keeps a comic familiar without ever quite making them the story.

Taskmaster changed that. Series 20 ran on Channel 4 from 11 September to 13 November 2025 with Adam alongside Ania Magliano, Phil Ellis, Reece Shearsmith and Sanjeev Bhaskar. It finished as the tightest series the show has had: Adam, Magliano and Ellis all ended on 151 points, Shearsmith on 148 and Bhaskar on 143, and the title went to Adam on a three-way tiebreak — a first for the programme.

Four months later she was on Prime Video for the second series of LOL: Last One Laughing UK, hosted by Jimmy Carr, with Bob Mortimer defending his title and a line-up including David Mitchell, Diane Morgan, Romesh Ranganathan, Amy Gledhill, Mel Giedroyc, Alan Carr, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Sam Campbell. The first three episodes landed on 19 March 2026, two more on 26 March, and the finale on 2 April.

Football, which is not a sideline

Adam supports Leeds United, plays for a local side, and turned out for Soccer Aid in 2023, 2024 and 2025. On 10 December 2025, Channel 4 announced her as co-presenter of its Adobe Women's FA Cup coverage with Jill Scott, under a three-season terrestrial rights deal covering one match per round from the third round on. Each round opened with Jill And Maisie's Road To Wembley, filmed in the host town the day before the game, meeting supporters and club figures before the live build-up.

The pair fronted the final on 31 May 2026 at Wembley, Brighton & Hove Albion's first women's cup final, which Manchester City won 4-0 in front of 43,917.

A League Of Their Own announced its first arena tour on 27 April 2026 for that September — Jamie Redknapp hosting, Scott and Tony Bellew as captains, with dates in Liverpool, Manchester, London, Newcastle, Birmingham and Glasgow. Adam is among the guests, which put her on arena stages in the same month her own theatre tour started.

Whatsherface: the recognition problem as a title

The new show takes its name from the specific rung Adam currently occupies. As she put it ahead of the opening night, people do not say "that's Maisie Adam", they say "that's what's her face from that show". The examples have accumulated: a guest at a wedding described her as the tall, chaotic one with the weird hair, and a news report on Women's Euros fans introduced her as "what's her face, comedian Maisie Adam". It began as a running joke with her husband.

Tickets went on sale through Ticketmaster at 10am on 29 October 2025, with the run originally plotted from 17 September to 8 November 2026. The opening night was at the Limelight in Belfast on 17 September, chosen deliberately: she has said Irish audiences are storytellers by culture, and that playing there feels like everyone has tucked in for the evening together. Dundee's Whitehall Theatre followed on 21 September and the Glasgow Pavilion on 23 September.

Demand pushed the tour past its original shape. On 3 April 2026 a further 20 dates were added for February and March 2027, taking the total to roughly 41 and the closing date to 20 March 2027, with venues including Bristol Beacon, Birmingham Town Hall, Sheffield's Octagon, Hull City Hall and Oxford's New Theatre. The autumn leg still to come takes in Hall for Cornwall in Truro on 18 October, Cheltenham Town Hall on 20 October, Brighton Dome on 21 October, Hackney Empire on 29 October and HOME in Manchester on 31 October.

On where the material comes from, she is unromantic about it: a bag, a bowl of cereal, a pigeon that flew across the road.