Kate Hammer is a fresh face and also entire person forged in the comedy, writing, and performance scenes, living it up in Scotland, U.K. They have performed internationally as an improviser, stand-up, sketch comedian, and actor.

Kate “the” Hammer studied Creative Writing at Concordia University, and has trained with Steve Kaplan, at UCB, specializing in any improv that has a full name (see: Harold, Armando, Janice Tremblay). She also studied French language, and utilises this bilingualism to impress Anglophones. Kate is now a Master in TV Fiction Writing from Glasgow Caledonian University (with Distinction).

Kate was the creator, producer, and host of the monthly comedy hour and production company called INFEMOUS. It creates space for fem and non-binary folk because, as it turns out, we still need that to happen. The show brought sketch, improv, and a monologist together in a safe and empowering way. It was a part of Just for Laughs and POP Fest Montreal, but has been on hiatus for a few years. Under the title, Kate edited and published a feminist anthology (INFEMOUS Stories) in 2018 that supremely upset one straight, white man (and possibly more).

In theatre, she was nominated for three FRANKIE awards at the 2019 sell-out Montreal Fringe for the show she wrote, directed, produced, and acted in called The Peers (JFL Best Comedy, Segal Centre Best Theatre Company, and Freestanding Room’s Making Big Things Happen in Small Spaces). She was awarded the Excellence in Playwriting Award at the McGill Theatre Festival, and was invited to present her play, Waiting for Janice, at the 2020 Queer Reading Series before it was cancelled due to Covid-19.

In film and television, Kate won Grey Moth’s Witty Women award to write a short called WILD OATS, before writing and directing BEAR in 2023 (GMAC Little Pictures, BAFTA-qualifying, ReelAbilities) which was featured in Working Differently, a Screen Scotland documentary about neurodiversity in the industry. She directed The Last Day Residing in Flat 2/2 for the Edinburgh 48-Hour Festival which won Best Use of Prop and was nominated for eight other categories, including Best Director and Best Film. She has been commissioned to create four BBC Short Stuff comedies, was selected for the Convergence Programme by Short Circuit (2022), Jed Mercurio Mentorship with Vinay Patel (2024) where she wrote an original pilot, and is a Comedian on the inaugural Torino FilmLab Comedy Lab programme (2024). During the day, Kate is a Storyliner with River City, having trained on EastEnders through the BBC Academy.

In comedy, Kate was a semi-finalist for LGBTQ New Comedian Awards, Funny Women Awards, and the Leicester Square New Comedian Awards in 2022. She’s been featured at Just for Laughs, Latitude Festival, Gilded Balloon’s Late N Live, Kelburn Garden Party, among other festivals. As a sketch artist, she won Runner-Up Best Local Troupe at Montreal Sketchfest ‘19, and participates in and edits the Humour Mill Live sketch shows. She is a weekend regular at both The Stand and Monkey Barrel Comedy in Scotland, and is the house MC for All Mouth Comedy, a professional queer comedy compilation show.

And finally, for radio, Kate has written for Mighty Bunny’s sketch Radio 4 pilot, and been a guest on The Good, The Bad, The Unexpected for BBC Radio Scotland, hosted by Mark Nelson. She’s a regular on the Good Comedians Watch Bad Movies podcast, and is a too-honest guest on other shows.

Kate Hammer “Head Shark” knows a lot about goats and their cheese, so please feel free to start up a conversation anytime you see fit, in any way safe and possible.

Photographs by David Morris, Mathieu Samson, Chris Dudley, and Jeremy Cabrera.