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Welcome

Maggie Irving

Founder and Director of Comedy Matters

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Putting Humour to Work

Comedian. Teacher, Director, Researcher. Expert in clowning, play, improvisation & stand up comedy.

'Laughter is the social glue that creates lasting connections.'

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 About Maggie

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Maggie is a UK based clown and comedian, actor, director, academic and qualified drama teacher with 35 years in the creative industry. She co-owned theatre company Eros, in Exeter, alongside studying for a Licentiate Acting Diploma with LAMDA and The Guildhall, before going to Plymouth University, to undertake a BA in theatre and performance.

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Introduced to clowning in the first year of her degree, she began researching women-centred clowning. Over the past eighteen years, she has facilitated, directed, and researched comedy and performance, and is the first woman in the world to gain an Arts & Humanities Research Council funded, Practice as Research PhD on the process of becoming a female clown. Her research and performance work took her to the Edinburgh Festival and London’s Tate Modern.

 

Her findings into avant-garde artist Baroness Elsa, the Queen of Dada, proposed that women can embrace a touch of madness and that people don’t need to be clowns per se, to clown. She is the first woman to deliver an online feminist clown course to women+ living in Europe, UK, Canada and the USA and to professional business-women.

 

Her passion for performance, writing comedy, stand up, and clowning saw her lecture and deliver teaching modules and workshops at Theatre Royal, TRP, Plymouth, Winchester University, Plymouth University and Marjon University.

 

Maggie’s clients range from medical professionals from The Royal College of General Practitioners, GP trainers, nurses to university lecturers, students, business people, professionals - such as lawyers, solicitors and teachers, writers, comedians, burlesque artists, stand-up comedians, and poets.

 

Her popular and energetic style of teaching has been welcomed at Port Eliot, Stratford-upon-Avon, Penzance and Budleigh Salterton Literary Festivals. When Covid struck, she was one of the first comedy teachers to go online and is a keen advocate on how and why to be humorous on screen, whether lecturing, holding meetings or performing.

 

She is currently editing and developing her PhD thesis: ‘Toward a Female Clown Practice: Transgression, Archetype and Myth’ for publication.

Dr Maggie Irving: Comedy Matters Training

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  • Drama Teacher training – PGCE Secondary Drama

  • Globe Theatre, London: Teaching Shakespeare in the Classroom

  • Plymouth University – Improvisation, Clowning, Writing, Directing, Puppetry, Dance

  • Keith Johnstone – Improvisation

  • Phillppe Gaulier – Clown school

  • John Morrish – Improvisation

  • Peta Lily – Dark Clown

  • John Wright, The Gentle Art of Idiocy Workshop, Toynbee Studios, London

  • Jenny Eclair, Stand-up comedy Workshop, University of Lancaster

  • Guildhall School of Music and Dramatic Art – Licentiate Solo Acting Diploma

  • L.A.M.D.A – Licentiate Acting Diploma

Contact

I'm always looking for new and exciting opportunities. Let's connect.

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