An enjoyment of performing and a self-deprecating brand of humour have seen Maia von Malaisé (Theology 2021) grasp any opportunity at the University of Cambridge.

Theatrical performances at school were followed by a year at LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art), where Maia completed a foundation diploma in acting.

She tried stand-up in her first year at Cambridge, with her opening line referencing her name – she is half-German and the name is French – as “Maia from Illness”.

Maia was glad she postponed her entry to university, the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions subsiding sufficiently by her matriculation in October 2021 that she had a fuller experience.

That included an early dramatic performance in King’s College Chapel. She delivered a 15-minute monologue, Samuel Beckett’s ‘Not I’, in the fourth week of Michaelmas Term. As Mouth, she was shrouded in darkness, with a bike light directed on to her face.

“It was super intense,” she says. “It’s pages and pages and all fast-paced. Only my mouth was lit and i had this strange bike light strapped to my head in order to illuminate it in the pitch-black chapel.”

Since she has performed in theatres across the city and collegiate university, in diverse shows such as: a student written political comedy; a comedy-musical parody sketch show about Ed Sheeran; a one-night stand-up; Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia in Trinity Fellows’ garden, black tie; ‘smokers’ stand-up nights; and, Caius Open Mic, where she sang a few original songs and some Paulo Nutini.

Maia has also performed in Wuthering Heights and All My Sons, demonstrating her repertoire of accents (Yorkshire and American), and has numerous plans for Lent Term, including directing two-character show An Intervention.

Comedy was something she first explored at LAMDA, when she was tasked with devising, writing and delivering a performance in a short exercise. Her chosen subject was periods.

She says: “It was a monologue set up with someone turning up to an interview. They're late, and then they look down and see their period has leaked all over their trousers. They go on a big rant about all the times their period has got in the way and there are some reflections on teenage holidays, strange parties and the stigma around not talking about period in general.

“People laughed a lot. And I didn’t mean for it to be that funny.”

She repeated the performance in Cambridge and the laughs continued. Maia’s confidence grew and she took part in a freshers’ stand-up night, and she has also been part of sketch shows, with credits for both writing and performing.

She is currently writing and preparing to perform in the annual Footlights Presents Sketch Show, the theme of which is rejection this year. Her current sketches are “quite strange”.

She adds: “I've written one about a vampire going into a blood donation clinic, Trapped the CBBC show, a shark who is really bad at being a shark...It's slightly teenagery humour which doesn't always make sense. The comedy I enjoy watching is quite stupid.”

Maia is also on the awards committee of the Watersprite Film Festival and captain of the Cambridge University Netball Club fourth team.

Her busy schedule was commented upon by her Director of Studies whom she has tried to assure multiple times she does in fact get her work done.

She is enjoying an active and full Cambridge experience. She is not as busy as her CamDram profile suggests – puppet mastery is a tenuous credit and in an improv show you do not have to learn lines! – but she anticipates performing will always be part of her life and could even be a future career.

“When I imagine my life, working in the arts and acting would be fulfilling,” she adds.