Maisie Adam, Ivo Graham and Zoe Lyons

It’s the second champions’ week on Richard Osman’s House Of Games this week. Every day from Monday to Friday, comedians Maisie Adam, Ivo Graham and Zoe Lyons will be pitched against radio presenter Dev Griffin for the remarkably cheap trophy.

Who is Maisie Adam?

And let’s face it, people are probably Googling ‘what’s the deal with her hair?’ as well!

The 27-year-old comedian came to prominence after winning the  So You Think You're Funny? new act competition at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe. And her return to the festival the following year earned her a and nominated for best newcomer.

Before that, she trained as an actor with the National Youth Theatre  and the East 15 Acting School in Essex. At 14, she was diagnosed with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

Adam comes from a successful family from Pannal, North Yorkshire. Her mother is executive director of the Louder Than Words Festival in Manchester and her grandfather was Lawrence Byford, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary who led an inquiry into the police failings of the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

Maisie’s first TV appearance was on ITV2's The Stand-Up Sketch Show in February 2019, and since then she has appeared on plenty of panel shows, including 8 Out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week, QI, Have I Got News for You, and Would I Lie To You? This year she also she narrated the ITV2 reality show The Cabins.

She also played punk rocker Siouxsie Sioux in a 2018 episode of Sky’s  Urban Myths, The Sex Pistols Vs. Bill Grundy.

Adam shaved the back of her hair out of boredom during lockdown, and it certainly has given her a distinctive look. It naturally attracted comments on social media – both good and bad – prompting her to tweet back after a Mock The Week appearance: ‘Big up to all you lovely lot who’ve said nice things about me hair today after some wazzocks got arsey about it. Here it is in all its glory; get used to it.’

Here is Maisie Adam performing at Chortle’s Fast Fringe in 2019:

Who is Ivo Graham?

Eton and Oxford-educated Ivo Graham also came to prominence via the So You Think You're Funny new act competition – winning in in 2009 at the age of just 18.

He was nominated for best newcomer in the 2010 Chortle Awards and for best show at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2019.

In an interview last year he said his privileged background ‘was something I relished early on [because it was a caricature that I could play with, with jokes about bullying, sexual tension or funny uniforms. Now that’s expanded to talking about the wider emotional and societal ramifications of going to that school. You know that you are operating in every sphere on a bedrock of good fortune.’

Graham was actually born in Tokyo, where his father was working in insurance risk assessment of the time. He recently became a father himself, as detailed in his latest stand-up show The Game Of Life.

A regular on panel shows – including Radio 5 Live’s sports-based Fighting Talk, Graham  this year also presented the Dave travelogue British as Folk alongside fellow comedians Darren Harriott and Fern Brady

Here he is on Comedy Central:

Who is Zoe Lyons?

A graduate of The Poor School drama college, Lyons first came to public attention in the 2001 ITV reality show Survivor, making the last four.

She then turned to stand-up, winning the Funny Women title in 2004 and being nominated for best newcomer for her debut one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2007. The following year she won Dave's Joke Of The Fringe with a one-liner that now seems in poor taste: 'I can't believe Amy Winehouse self-harms. She's so irritating she must be able to find someone to do it for her' 

Lyons's previous TV appearances include Mock the Week, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow, Room 101 and QI. And in 2021 she hosted the teatime TV quiz show, Lightning, on BBC Two

She lives in Brighton with her wife Sindy, a nurse originally from the Netherlands.

Here's a clip from her Live At Apollo set which aired on BBC Two last month:

• Richard Osman’s House Of Games is on BBC Two at 6pm each weeknight.

Published: 13 Dec 2021