FORGET about New Year Resolutions to lose weight, walk 20,000 steps daily, learn Spanish or ditch social media. In 2023, you should make laughing more your goal. According to award-winning science communicator and musical comedian Emer Maguire, laughter will help much more than your soul.
It's often been said laughter is the best medicine and the Strabane-born performer, who loves not only to make her audiences laugh, but also to tell them what laughter does for the brain and body, says having a good old giggle is "important for our wellbeing".
Emer explains: "Laughter improves the function of your blood vessels, which can help prevent heart attacks. It's good for your immune system, it can decrease your pain if you suffer from chronic pain and also increases the endorphins that are released by your brain, thus helping with your mental wellbeing."
Described as 'an Indie Victoria Wood', former speech-therapist Emer expanded her career into science communicating after winning the 2015 FameLab competition. Bookings at science conferences soon expanded to comedy gigs and even her own show on Radio Ulster.
She's made quite an impact in the comedy circuit since her 2019 debut sold-out Edinburgh Fringe tour, Hilarious Humans.
Her secret to success is combining relatable humour from human experience and her own life with her hilarious brand of musical comedy and self-deprecating charm.
Emer personally had to lean heavily upon laughter during 2022 when she had a life-threatening clot on her lung. She even managed to write jokes and a new song whilst getting treatment at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.
"The doctors congratulated me for being alive as around one third of people with a pulmonary embolism die of cardiac arrest before they find out they have the clot," says Emer.
"It can be provoked or unprovoked – they still don't know why I had it. It was scary and a big shock, but like any life experience you get a song out of it," adds the 31-year-old, who penned the song If I Die Tomorrow from her hospital bed.
"People say your life flashes before you, but for me I was thinking more about the practical things that need sorted," laughs Emer.
Her latest comedy show, Up to High Doh, draws inspiration from this period, as well as discovering in her 30s that she had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
"I've always struggled with shyness and post-Covid I was suffering with really bad stagefright. I went for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for that and discovered it was actually OCD. I was in the middle of dealing with that when the whole clot thing happened, so I kept thinking 'surely the year can't get any worse?' So I aptly called the show, Up to High Doh.
"It's very personal and honest. It's about real life and the things that happen to me. The day before the show at the MAC in November I dislocated my shoulder and got my tooth out, but the show must go on," she laughs.
Emer's unique viewpoint on life's ups and downs, rich in song and quick-witted wordplay, makes for a truly unique comedy performance that not only makes her audiences laugh, but also examine their own lives.
"When I first spoke publicly about my OCD, people were messaging me and saying they found it so helpful.
"There is this stereotype that people with OCD are really organised and obsessed with cleanliness – I am none of those. So, when I talk about these things on stage and describe my symptoms, which are not stereotypical and not like Jack Nicholson's character in the movie As Good as It Gets, others can relate."
Emer admits that controlling her OCD has both helped her nerves and her bladder now when she performs.
"I used to do all these irrational routines and rituals before a show, like ensuring I have about eight litres of water on stage with me and drinking water obsessively throughout.
"In about 20 minutes I would have drunk three litres of water. People were probably thinking I had started to relax because I was dancing, whereas in reality I was moving about because I was going to pee myself.
"Medication and therapy have transformed my life. The OCD traits were very controlling and now I'm able to enjoy my comedy so much more and have a ball on stage."
Emer accompanies herself on piano and her trusty half-size Martin guitar, though she will debut a colourful carbon fibre half-sized guitar, made by a local craftsman, for her homecoming gig in Strabane.
And whilst she admits she will be nervous standing on stage and talking about her personal life in front of a home crowd, it appears her father has more to fear.
"My dad is a local funeral director in Strabane and everybody in the community knows him, so I can take the hand out of him more and people will get it," she laughs.
Emer put her speech therapy job over a year ago to focus on performing and comedy, renting a studio space. At the start of the year she released her album Rock Bottom Has a Trapdoor on Spotify and Amazon Music. It features songs recorded live last year at Belfast's Ulster Hall and Strabane's Alley Theatre including Socially Awkward, Middle Child, Death to Diets, Stage Fright, Take Me Back To The 90s and Now That I'm 30, which went viral on TikTok.
With lyrics such as "I used to get excited when a hot stranger caught my eye, now I only get excited when I use my Actifry," and "I used to get excited in the park just drinking cans, now I only get excited when someone cancels plans", you can't help but nod and admire Emer's honesty about singing about what life really is like when you get older.
"The album has been an emotional journey for me. It's following the theme of struggling in life and then when things are bad, the carpet gets pulled out from under you. It's all self-deprecating and sarcastic Northern Irish humour."
She also recently put out a pilot episode of her new podcast, The World is on Fire with Emer Maguire, featuring her pick of the bizarre stories of the week, such as the 106-year-old granny who requested a naked butler for her birthday.
"It's all those weird and wonderful stories which you would say to your mates "did you hear about this?".
"I commentate for the BBC and often appear on Sunday with Steven Rainey on Radio Ulster and talk about the news of the week, whether it's politics or the cost of living. But I also like having a bit of craic, so the alternative news stories are perfect."
:: Emer Maguire will be playing the Out to Lunch Festival at Belfast's Black Box on January 14 and then taking her Up To High Doh show to Strabane's Alley Theatre on January 20 and Belfast's Grand Opera House on February 10 and 11.
