Mae Martin: Dope (SCF)

Canadian-born, UK-based comedian Mae Martin became an addict in her teens, first to marijuana, then to cocaine and heroin. She eventually became a dealer; her parents kicked her out when they discovered this. It took a trip to rehab to pull her out of a tragic spiral of substance abuse and bring her back to sobriety.

If this sounds like no laughing matter, Martin begs to differ. In her hands, it's a remarkably uplifting confessional, delivered with oodles of charm. In Dope, she muses on her personal predisposition for addiction, but this isn't merely of the narcotic variety. As a proto-queer pre-teen, Martin was powerfully obsessed with Bette Midler - an infatuation she didn't realise at the time was largely sexual. Stand-up comedy became another obsession, first stepping foot into the comedy clubs that would become her home away from home at the tender age of 11.

Martin's skill is in taking potentially bleak material and passing it through a quirky, silly, pepped up filter. She likens her addictive personality to a prawn living in her brain, who slumbers until the tell-tale signs of delicious dopamine - the brain's pleasure hormone - heralds the arrival of a fresh craving. It's cute, illustrative analogies like this, delivered with an immediately endearing geeky charisma, that keep Martin's chosen subject matter so buoyant and engaging.

This biopic hour of stand-up is commendably frank, and in fact, Martin finds herself apologising to the audiences periodically, promising that her set isn't all doom and gloom. Ironically, however, there's a nagging sense that Martin is holding back or has at least edited her experiences to make them more palatable. Her demeanour is so bright and upbeat, her patter so chatty and at ease, it's hard to imagine Martin suffering the kinds of sordid scenarios she cites.

But ultimately, this is a damn funny show, and any diminished sense of genuine gravitas is more than made up for by the bullseye-hitting punchlines. It may be a show with something of a split personality, but Martin draws the threads of her anecdotes together by the close of Dope, with one final parting Bette Midler fantasy, of course.