Rachel Farrell
CLONDALKIN Facebook star Enya Martin, who is behind the hugely popular ‘Giz a Laugh’ page, begins her Christmas tour on December 1 in Tallaght.
The 24-year-old begins her tour at the Tallaght Civic Theatre, the first of seven shows taking place in the run up to the festive season.
Performing in Tallaght, Ballymun, Portmarnock, Ratoath and Drogheda, tickets remain available for only two of the seven nights.
Enya’s comedy videos have gathered 235,000 Facebook likes, with some videos getting over two million views.
A graduate of advertising and marketing, Enya says that in school she never even thought about being a comedian.
“It never crossed my mind to go self-employed,” she revealed. “I don’t think I was mature enough to think like that when I was in secondary school.
“It was only when Facebook came along and I was in my last year of college that it all started.
“When video started on Facebook that’s when I jumped on it and thought, ‘maybe this is an opportunity to show people that I have a really good sense of humour’.”
Some of Martin’s most popular videos feature the made-up characters ‘Shardon’ and ‘Chanto’, who are inspired by a typical Dublin mother-daughter relationship.
The show includes sketches from her well-known characters, as well as some stand-up comedy.
Martin says she tries to touch on common scenarios and ties in the Christmas season too.
“I do a bit of stand up, because eventually I’ll just be doing a stand up show, so I want people to see that I can do that too and not just write sketches,” she explained.
“Then we’ll jump into a few sketches with characters I do, like the ‘Shardon’ character and ‘Chanto’ character.
“I do a couple of each and they’re about 15 minutes long. I’ve about four or five sketches.”
It was after her sold out summer tour that Enya decided that this is what she wants to do for the rest of her life.
“There’s nothing better than a live audience,” she enthused. “That’s why I came back at Christmas time and wrote a whole new show again.
“Obviously word of mouth was spreading because I originally thought it was the same old crowd but I think there’s new people coming now.”
Martin’s videos attract a range of viewers, “from kids to OAPs”.
One moment in particular stood out to her, when a woman in her 70s came up after a show to compliment her on her work.
“At my last show there was a lot of elderly people there, I was so shocked,” she added.
“I always come out after the show to get pictures with people and that. It’s amazing. I am really shocked at the age difference.”
With online posting can come a variety of reactions, including some negativity and the inevitable trolls.
But Martin says she’s lucky in that she “doesn’t get it as bad as some people do”.
“There’s obviously always going to be trolls, whether you’re the best in the business or not,” she reflects.
“There are always going to be people that you can’t please, or people that are just out to see you fail.
“But I think people can tell from a mile away if you’re jsut an attention seeker or don’t have any talent.
“By selling out shows, I think people look at me and think ‘oh, she’s obviously a hard worker’.”
There is no doubt Martin will be giving many people a laugh over Christmas.period.
