Mae Martin: Seiva

I have been a big fan of Mae's for a long time now, having first seen them on Russel Howards Good News years ago (back when they did comedy songs with a guitar), I was also lucky enough to see them live in Brighton just before the pandemic.

I am not sure why, perhaps the editing or pacing, or just the material itself, but this just didn't hit the mark as much as usual. It felt slightly awkward, subdued and stunted. By no means a bad comedy special, but never reaches the heights of their previous material in my opinion.

Raises a few giggles and had me smiling throughout, but never really laughing out loud.

If your are a fan of Mae's its obviously worth checking out, just don't expect too much!

I love Mae, they have a unique nervous energy about them. Also they are great with deadpan humor so might be not everyone gets when they are joking. This special is full of that energy and some personal stories, not all of them happy or sappy. And some people may not share all their believes which I suspect is the real reason some people claim this show wasn't funny at all.

Because it was, I laughed aloud many times and I bet it was a joy to see live. I hope they get to too many more specials and polish their style even more.

I hope this review if finally ok to post because I think this is my fourth time writing and trying to submit it.

I was excited to see that Mae Martin had a Netflix special; I enjoyed Feel Good and find Mae charming and likable. I thought the special would be an opportunity for Mae to showcase their talents as a comedian because the content of Feel Good was mostly autobiographical. This is a disappointing special. There are some rambling mildly amusing anecdotes, but there aren't any funny lines. I don't think I laughed once watching the entire thing. I still like Mae's style and personality and find them sincere and amusing, but this isn't comedy. This is like watching a monologue of a person who I would find interesting to talk with at a party. It's also sad that Mae calls out comedians like Louis CK and Dave Chapelle in a desperate attempt to score political points when they can't get a laugh from their audience. If you're going toe-to-toe with some of the GOATS then you need better material.

Based on some of the other reviews I've read, I think that perhaps this special isnt for everyone, and thats okay. Personally, I laughed a ton throughout, *like* to the point of having coughing fits because im still recovering from a cold.

I found it to be intellectually stimulating while providing good laughs. Mae Martin is incredibly introspective, perhaps to their detriment sometimes. It creates the stage for unique jokes, which landed for me, though I could understand if others don't appreciate it. If you're looking for cheap, hacky laughs or those based on vulgarity, you will not find it here. If you enjoy thought-provoking comedy and enjoyed Feel Good, you may just find this to be as brilliantly written as I did.

Mae arrives on Netflix with a characteristically understated live special, with only a sort of semi-meta bit of bumpering with the great Phil Burgers (also in Feel Good) as adornment. I think the direction was similarly bare bones but the material was solid and Mae is so effortlessly charismatic, with their slightly-overwhelmed-to-even-be-speaking-in-public vibe. The comedy is a niche sort of vibe tonally and strikes a strange place between introspective tangents of tremendous earnestness and stabs of surreal bluntitude. Whether they nail "the big message" or not is neither here nor there, this is them fairly unvarnished and I can dig it.