Bad haircut inspires Ania Magliano’s new comedy show

Stand-up comic Ania Magliano is set to bring her latest show, which went down rather well at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, to Cambridge in February.

Titled I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This, the show tells the dramatic and life-changing story of the worst haircut Ania, a graduate of Girton College, Cambridge, and a member of the famed Cambridge Footlights, has ever had.

The affable comedian and writer, speaking to the Cambridge Independent from her home in London, explains: “It was January and I was doing a gig, and I’d got this haircut that was so bad and I felt like I had to address it at the start of every gig that I went to, because otherwise the audience would be staring at it thinking, ‘Does she know that looks really bad?’

“I started just saying, ‘Look, I’ve had this really bad haircut’ and I would tell the story of it, and then I did a show at Edinburgh that year and that story was kind of too long to fit into it...

“Then this year I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll just start with that story and see where the show goes’ – and that became the basis for the whole show. It just grew organically out of having to explain the bad haircut that I got.”

Ania, whose debut comedy show Absolutely No Worries If Not won Best New Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival in 2022, reveals that she cried after she’d had the dodgy ’do.

“It has grown back but it’s taken like two years – that’s so long of looking bad,” she notes. “The thing is it was so short that if I was wearing a hat, it would stick out of the bottom, so I couldn’t even really be saved by a hat…

“I was clipping it up in different ways, just to try and trick people’s eyes into not really understanding how bad it was.”

Now back to normal, hair-wise, Ania sold out her month-long Edinburgh Festival Fringe run in advance and ended up adding extra dates.

She received an Edinburgh Comedy Award ‘Best Show’ nomination for her new hour, which was also declared one of the best reviewed Fringe shows of 2023 by the British Comedy Guide.

It that wasn’t enough, I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This was the number one pick in Time Out’s ‘The 11 best comedy shows at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023’.

“It went probably the best I could have hoped for it to go,” says the modest entertainer, who really enjoyed watching Micky Overman and a double act called Crizards while up at the festival. “I had a really lovely time, I really enjoyed doing my show and it all went very well.”

At what point did Ania, who cites the Bill Murray Comedy Club in Angel, London, as her favourite comedy venue, decide to pursue a career in stand-up?

“I worked at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016, as a receptionist, and I didn’t really know about stand-up comedy, other than it was something on TV that Michael McIntyre did,” she replies.

“I had a pass to see shows for free, because I was working there, and I just went and started to see some stand-up comedy because someone I was working with was really into comedy and he gave me loads of really good recommendations.

“I started to see stand-up and got really excited and thought ‘I think I want to do this’, and then I gave it a go after I came back from the Fringe. Four days after I got back, I booked into an open-mic and did it.

“I didn’t do it very well but I was like, ‘I really enjoyed that even though it went badly, so I should probably keep doing this’, and then I just sort of kept doing it and it never got boring, which I think is a good sign.”

Ania, who previously worked in social media marketing, was inspired early on in her stand-up career by the likes of Mae Martin and Rose Matafeo.

She has opened for comics such as Ed Gamble, Marc Maron and Catherine Cohen and her TV appearances include The Stand Up Sketch Show, The Comedy Guide to Life and Get off My Phone.

As a writer, Ania has many credits to her name, including The Emily Atack Show and Frankie Boyle’s New World Order for television, and Newsjack and The Now Show for BBC Radio 4.

As well as this, she writes with comedian, journalist and viral sensation Amelia Dimoldenberg on Chicken Shop Date and Amelia’s Cooking Show, featuring guests such as Ed Sheeran, Charli XCX, Lewis Capaldi, Shania Twain, Cher and Louis Theroux.

The relatable Gen Z stand-up also has a growing social media following, including 25,000 followers on X and more than one million views on YouTube. She has recently branched out into TikTok, amassing more than 1.8 million likes.

By way of a plug for her upcoming gig in Cambridge, Ania says: “I think it’s a show that can be enjoyed by a very mixed variety of people.

“If you’ve had a bad haircut, it’s for you, but also if you haven’t, then your bad haircut is coming – everyone has one at least once in their lives so you should probably see it to prepare yourself for what’s to come.”

Ania Magliano will bring her stand-up show, I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This, to the Cambridge Junction on Saturday, February 3.

Tickets, priced £16.50, are available at junction.co.uk. For more on Ania, visit aniamagliano.com.