Comedy / amy mason
Amy Mason on creating material, balancing real world and digital spaces, and the biggest homecoming gig of her life
Amy Mason and I are meeting up ahead of what will be her biggest tour to date, by some margin.
On the back of a successful and very well-reviewed Edinburgh Fringe run, she will be taking Behold! to nearly 30 towns and cities around the UK in the spring of 2026, including one night in the main house at Bristol Old Vic on February 23 – which represents an ambition fulfilled.
“I made my first theatre show with Bristol Old Vic 14 years ago, when I was 29”, she tells me, “and so to have a show in the main house means so much.
“I love Bristol, and I love that space, so to perform on that stage – which will be the biggest audience I’ve had on my own – I’m just really excited.”
The Dorset-born comic first moved to the city in her mid-20s, and spent some time away the following decade, but then moved back with her young family, settling in South Bristol. “I always wanted to move back,” she says. “It always felt like home to me. I loved it straightaway.”
Amy Mason – photo: Lucy Ridges
Making her solo standup debut in her early 40s with 2024’s Free Mason, after well over a decade as a writer and theatremaker, Mason’s route to comedy was undeniably circuitous.
That said, she tells me that her love of the form dates back to early childhood, when she would listen to a women’s comedy show hosted by Jo Brand on the radio in her bedroom. “I just loved it”, she recalls. “But there were so few visible women in comedy, especially those in their 20s, so it never seemed like a viable route for me.”
Certainly, when she did begin to turn her attention to standup, she hit the ground running. The sizeable audience Mason has cultivated since is in no small part down to her online success, particularly as a result of viral sketches on TikTok – her numerous characterisations of ‘Bristol school mums’ being the most well-known.
And while social media can be a good indicator of ideas that might be ripe for expansion on stage, she is careful to ensure a separation between the two forms, admitting that “trying to marry your online persona with the stuff you want to talk about onstage can be a tricky balance”.
“What a lot of people on TikTok like me for is being quite relatable; talking about kids, and doing observational comedy”, she says. “My live show is a bit more surreal, and also talks to bigger themes, like mental health; in some places it is also quite dark.”
If the degree to which Mason now gets recognised – particularly in Bristol – is anything to go by, the overlap between real-world and digital spaces is sometimes inevitable.
On a recent trip to buying sandpaper at Screwfix, Bedminster, and dressed in pyjamas “which were inside out, so as not to ruin them”, she details, she recalls the man in the queue behind her complementing her on how nice her banisters looked. “He’d seen me put them on my Instagram stories that morning, which felt a bit weird.”
As a result of her increased prominence, Mason has had to become more careful about what she decides to share online.
Amy Mason at Redcatch Community Garden – photo: Pit Lad
But despite her acceptance that “there’s obviously a lot of bad stuff that can be said about certain platforms”, she is also very aware that for many, citing especially those with caring responsibilities, social media can provide a groundbreaking way of bypassing the historic gatekeepers, as well as a valuable way to connect with people.
The online sphere has also proved fertile ground for new material. The origins of Behold! came from a specific moment after Mason was hacked, losing access to her phone and all her accounts for a week. And then came another surprise.
“I had some sex toys delivered, out of the blue”, she explains. “They had been ordered on my credit card, and then sent to my house. So I just opened this package one day, and had to wonder – is this sinister, or is this the hackers just having a laugh?”
The incident prompted Mason to develop a show around it, exploring how much we place trust in online spaces and communities in contemporary life.
Amy Mason, Behold – photo: Pit Lad
Behold! has been directed by actor and comedian Jessica Fostekew, who will also be visiting Bristol Old Vic in the spring with her latest show, Iconic Breath. Fostekew has also been something of a mentor to Mason, and has encouraged her to write on stage – sometimes going to open mic nights with as little as an idea – or even a word – from which to build.
As the tour approaches, Mason is not short of other projects to be working on. Along with fellow comedians Lindsey Santoro and Harriet Dyer, she is soon set to launch Social Moths, a new podcast on people who find it hard to socialise.
Finishing off her tea, she brings our chat back to her adopted home city, where we began. “I think it was probably extremely annoying for people that are Bristolian, to have me come in and doing Bristol skits”, she considers. “I’d be very annoyed if I were them.
“I think that for the most part, I’m reflecting back a lot of people who have moved here. And obviously there’s a massive problem here with gentrification and people who have been priced out, so I do see that. I’m not claiming to be Bristolian, but I really do love this city.”
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Amy Mason: Behold! is at Bristol Old Vic on February 23rd at 7.30pm. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk. She also visits The Pound, Corsham on February 7 and The Rondo, Bath on March 6. Find out more at www.amy-mason.com or follow @amymasoncomedy.
This article appears in Bristol24/7’s January/February 2026 magazine
Main photo: Pit Lad
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