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John Martin

John's outstanding talent is comedy both as a performer and a writer. For up to date and topical, clean comedy there are very few better. This originality coupled with his encyclopaedic knowledge of jokes makes John a master of comedy!
A journalist described John as a "human joke factory" when John smashed the World Record for continuous joke telling for an amazing 101 hours 39 minutes.

Recently John appeared on ITV's Today With Des & Mel Show, where he was so successful he was actually asked on air, to appear again!

John travels the world, entertaining international audiences on cruise ships such as the QE2. He is one of the top comedians in the world for this type of work. So much so, he recently appeared on the Maiden Voyage of the new super liner Queen Mary 2.

John Martin was born and bred in Liverpool. The son of a magician / ventriloquist who once worked with the Beatles, John grew up loving tales of show business and collecting jokes.

At the age of 20 he became Britain's first ever Government sponsored comedian, when he was awarded £40 per week under the Enterprise Allowance Scheme.

Even in a city famed for producing comedians, John's talent soon shone through. Several awards later, the readers of the local newspaper The Liverpool Echo voted John "Merseyside Comedian of the Year".

John's talent has literally taken him all over the world. From a number of visits to the Falkland Islands to Australia, America, New Zealand, and South Africa and all over Europe, this young man is always very much in demand, particularly for special company occasions.
He is also very much in demand by people with knowledge and power. Recently he performed at The Houses of Parliament, and has performed for the Labour Party and got a standing ovation at last year's Conservative Party Conference Dinner (who booked John for this year's conference 2 days later!).

Being a keen golfer, John particularly enjoys corporate golf events, and he often has the pleasure of both playing with the guests during the day and performing to them at night.

John has an extraordinary gift to "ad-lib" and in cabaret and corporate performances he enjoys utilising this talent to the full. His ability to do this, with a rapier - like speed, as well as being astounding to watch, has earned John the nickname "The World's First Interactive Comedian".

For a number of years John was a regular member of the Radio 5 Live programme Interesting, Very Interesting a phone in show which had well known guests from the world of sport, in which John was required to interact with off-the-cuff comedy comments. Sport figures highly in John's life. For a couple of season's he was the regular host at Liverpool FC for the club sponsors Carlsberg, and can still be seen at some home games hosting penalty competitions on the pitch at half time, gaining roars of laughter from 45,000 people!
John is proud to have been made the Patron of Colwyn Bay Football Club, and has taken his role so seriously that he is also now a club director.

His expertise in comedy was confirmed by Monarch Airlines, who chose John to present their in-flight comedy channel.
On the Granada Television programme Celebration Ken Dodd declared John as his favourite young comedian and forecast a wonderful future for him.

Every artist looks apprehensively at reviews in professional magazines and journals. John need not worry if recent quotes are anything to go by:
"…but Liverpool can still breed great comics, with John Martin showing immense promise, with terrific material, clean and topical, delivered with an appealing air of diffidence, and showing that the gulf between mainstream and modern comedy can be crossed with ease given the right attitude"
The Stage