It’s always interesting to see a standup’s first show since becoming a superstar. The wait’s been longer than I’d have liked with Mae Martin’s Sap – because press were excluded from its live performances (one of the perks, it would appear, that fame brings), but now it’s on Netflix, this first solo set since the huge success of Martin’s queer romcom Feel Good on the same platform. Filmed in their native Canada, on a woodland stage set, it’s a hugely likable hour by a comic who’s made a specialty of emotional self-inquiry, whose standup is like open-heart surgery with a microphone in the scalpel’s place.
While it incorporates elements from Martin’s previous shows, Sap also feels like a step forward. Unlike 2017’s Dope, say, which zeroed in on Martin’s teenage years and addictive personality, there’s no particular theme here: the show radiates (and justifies) confidence in the 35-year-old’s ability to hold our attention without one. The self-reflexive tics that once characterised Martin’s standup have fallen away, replaced by composure and authority – albeit composure put to the task of depicting a turbulent inner life (“I’m full to the absolute brim with feelings”), and authority in the service of lovably self-mocking humour.
