Francesca* is a comedian, author, actress, playwright and speaker who has toured the globe with her award-winning stand-up shows. She launched her comedy career in 2000, when she became the first and only woman to win the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award at the Edinburgh Fringe. She has performed in Australia, Ireland, France, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, in Hollywood, on Broadway, and alongside Emma Thompson at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

From 2003 to 2008, Francesca toured her hit Edinburgh solo shows I’m perfect and In Deep around the UK. In 2011, she won the Edinburgh Fringe Media Network Award for her solo show What The *** Is Normal?!, and embarked on a 140-date world tour. In 2016, she supported Frankie Boyle on his sell-out UK tour, and was commissioned to write and perform in her new solo show, Francesca Martinez’s Wobbly Manifesto.

Since starring in five series of BBC1’s Grange Hill in the 1990s, Francesca has made numerous TV appearances including BBC2’s Extras opposite Kate Winslet and Ricky Gervais, BBC3’s Russell Howard’s Good News and CBBC’s The Dumping Ground. On ITV, she headlined The Jonathan Ross Show and guested on The Frank Skinner Show, Lorraine, Loose Women and This Morning. She has appeared on Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff, in two series of Channel 4’s Very British Problems, on Sky One’s The Russell
Howard Hour, and opened Series 11 of BBC2’s Live at the Apollo.

Francesca’s radio credits include, for BBC Radio 4, several hugely popular appearances on The News Quiz alongside the late, great Jeremy Hardy and co-hosting Loose Ends. For BBC Radio 3, she wrote and performed for The Verb and Shakespeare’s Centenary. In 2018, she wrote and starred in her first radio play How We’re Loved for BBC Radio 4.

Francesca’s best-selling book, also called What The **** Is Normal?!, was published by Penguin Random House in 2014. It garnered rave reviews and was nominated Best Book in the Chortle Comedy Awards and runner-up in the Bread & Roses Book Award. In 2021, she contributed to the anthology This Is How We Come Back Stronger for & Other Stories and the Feminist Press and wrote the CBBC comedy-drama How I Found My Two Best Friends, which aired that same year.

Francesca’s first stage play All of Us was commissioned by the National Theatre, where it ran from 29th July to 24th September 2022 with Francesca in the lead role. The play received multiple five star reviews, standing ovations every night, and Francesca was nominated for the prestigious George Devine Award.

A regular commentator on TV and radio, Francesca has guested on BBC1’s This Week, Channel 4 News, BBC2’s Newsnight, BBC1’s Today’s Politics, and was voted most popular guest on BBC3’s Free Speech. Her debut on BBC1’s Question Time was described as the show’s “best-ever moment” and went viral with 11 million views in the first week alone.

Francesca delivers motivational and after-dinner speeches across the globe. In 2005, she was nominated for the Motivator of the Year Award along with Sir Bob Geldof. She was awarded Public Affairs Achiever of the Year 2013, nominated a Top Ten Game Changer in BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour Power List 2014 and Hero of the Year in the European Diversity Awards. She has an Honorary Doctorate from the Open University “for making Britain a more compassionate and fairer society”, and a second honorary doctorate from Bradford University “for her contributions to equality, inclusive thought and social commentary”.

*Francesca has cerebral palsy but much prefers the word ‘wobbly’.