Stillness is where I stall. Pressure is where I perform.
Stian Macshane is living proof that a brain wired differently is a superpower in the right conduit.
An entertainer, presenter and ADHD advocate, he is a Britain's Got Talent 2026 semi-finalist: all four judges said yes, and he finished second in the national public vote, live from the Apollo Theatre in London. Simon Cowell called it "the fastest freestyle rap I have ever seen in my life."
He spent years fighting an ADHD brain before discovering what it could do under pressure, unlocking its capabilities to become a freestyle virtuoso across ten years and more than 10,000 hours on the mic.
He headlines comedy clubs in three countries: Top Secret Comedy Club London four times over, Comedy Store Sydney, Sit Down Brisbane, and Comedy Lounge Perth, sold out twice. A UK headline tour in 2026. Ten Fringe seasons including three full Edinburgh runs, and the Sydney Comedy Festival main stage to more than 2,000. More than 100 corporate bookings for BHP, Rio Tinto, Roy Hill, Chevron and the City of Perth, four years as main stage MC of the Shire of Pilbara's FeNaClNG Festival, and crib rooms and FIFO villages across the Pilbara.
A TEDx UWA speaker on channelling ADHD as a superpower, he presented and opened the 2026 WA ADHD Conference, is a spokesperson and community ambassador for ADHD WA, and partners with My Spirited Child. He is a WAM Award winner, a Fringe Tour Ready Award nominee, five-star reviewed, with six million-plus views and appearances on BBC World News.
His keynote, Finding Your Flowstate, puts all of it to work. He speaks on ADHD, improvisation and resilience under pressure, then proves every word of it on whatever the audience gives him, and people leave able to name their own superpower and channel it into their work and their mission.
None of it is a trick. The wiring that made order difficult made him fast in the moment, and a decade of aiming that at live audiences turned the liability into a method. He does not describe improvisation and resilience from the outside. His entire career is the evidence that they can be trained.
Talking Points
Find your Flowstate
In February 2026, Stian Macshane took a fully improvised act to the Britain's Got Talent semi-final at the Apollo Theatre in London, won a yes from all four judges and finished second in the national public vote, and Simon Cowell called it "the fastest freestyle rap I have ever seen in my life."Find your Flowstate
This keynote is not a talk about the ADHD brain that made that possible, it is a demonstration of it: resilience, improvisation under pressure, and neurodiversity as an advantage rather than a deficit. He spent years treating a brain that worked differently as a fault to be fixed, and the talk is the story of what changed when he stopped, and found the one medium that could use a mind running at that speed. Then he proves it in the room, building a freestyle in the moment out of words the audience gives him, backed by ten Fringe seasons, a UK headline tour, the Sydney Comedy Festival main stage in front of 2,000 people, a TEDx talk at the University of Western Australia and a BBC World News interview about his creative work and ADHD.
Audiences leave with a working understanding of flow state, of improvising under pressure and of recovering from a mistake in front of a room, alongside an honest account of the hard parts: lived experience rather than clinical authority, and ADHD never sold as purely a gift.
Team Building and Workshops
Most team building asks people to be creative in front of colleagues, which is the thing adults are most afraid of. Macshane removes the fear by going first and by making the group build something together rather than perform individually: words come from the room, structure comes from him, and within an hour a team that insisted it could not do this has written and performed something as a group. It runs on the same method he teaches as craft, improvisation, listening, committing to a decision and recovering from a wrong one in public, which is why it works as a communication and psychological safety session rather than as an activity. He has delivered the method to groups of 200-plus students at Hale School across four year-levels for three years running, to teachers as professional development on neurodiversity, and to crews on Pilbara sites.Team Building and Workshops
What the client gets:
· A whole group contributing, including the people who never speak in workshops
· A shared thing the team made together, which outlasts the day
· Practical skills underneath the fun: listening, fast decisions, recovering from mistakes, speaking up
· Scales from an hour to a full day, for ten people or two hundred
Typical events: team days and offsites, leadership and graduate programs, conference breakout sessions, inclusion and culture programs, professional development days.
Conference and Event Hosting
A host who keeps a day on time is standard. One who can take the morning's keynote, the CEO's turn of phrase and the running joke from session two, and hand them back to the room as rap before the afternoon break, is not. Macshane MCs conferences, galas, launches, council events and end of year celebrations from welcome through to close, handling the run sheet, the timings, the sponsor acknowledgements and the introductions, with improvised comedy built out of the day itself in between. He has been main stage MC of the Shire of Pilbara's FeNaClNG Festival four years running and has hosted events for BHP, Rio Tinto, Roy Hill, Mineral Resources, KnightCorp, the City of Perth and the City of Stirling. The brief and the boundaries are agreed in advance, the content is clean by default, and the day finishes when it is supposed to.Conference and Event Hosting
What the client gets:
· A host who absorbs the day and gives it back, so the content in the room becomes the entertainment
· Energy held through the gaps, the transitions and the slow part after lunch, not just in the sessions
· Run sheet discipline: sponsors named, speakers introduced properly, timings held
· One microphone and a speaker, no band, no backline, no long soundcheck
Typical events: conferences and summits, awards nights, gala dinners, product launches, council and community events, end of roster and Christmas celebrations, multi-day festivals.
Roving and Spot Entertainment
The first forty minutes of an event are usually the flattest: people arrive, find a drink and talk to the person they came with. Macshane works the room instead of the stage, moving between groups and turning what people are holding, wearing, drinking and arguing about into rap on the spot. By the time guests sit down the room is already warm, already talking to each other, and already on his side, which makes everything after it easier. It needs no stage, no set time and no interruption to the program, and it fits alongside a formal MC or a separate headline act.Roving and Spot Entertainment
What the client gets:
· Arrivals, pre-dinner drinks and mingling that generate energy rather than drain it
· Guests who have personally interacted with the entertainment, not just watched it
· A room already lifted before the formalities begin
· Complete flexibility: it works around photographers, canapes, sponsors and late arrivals
Typical events: pre-dinner drinks and arrivals, cocktail functions, trade show and exhibition stands, conference breaks, VIP and sponsor receptions, Christmas parties.
"He matched the brief perfectly, had great comedic timing and was the perfect hype man to start guests journey on the night. Look forward to working with him again." Terence Smith, Events Manager, Known Associates
Headline Freestyle Comedy Performance
A live freestyle comedy show where the audience become part of hilarious, one-of-a-kind entertainment.
Headline Freestyle Comedy Performance
Video
Channeling ADHD as a superpower through the infinite creativity of rap | Stian Macshane | TEDxUWA
Stian Macshane is an extraordinarily talented freestyle rapper, who has lit up stages across Australia and frequently performs to packed out venues. Now, Stian is keen to share how he directs the erratic energy that lives in his head through the art form of spontaneous freestyle rap, where his usually overactive brain can actually find a meditative state through the directional flow of searching for rhymes. For the last 10 years, Stian Macshane has followed his passion - the art form of freestyle rap. This pursuit and obsession with rhyme have taken him on a journey - from performing to thousands of people alongside some of the world's biggest electronic music DJs at music festivals, to rapping at hundreds of shows nationally, fronting and featuring with live bands, freestyling on commercial radio and hosting events as a comedian. Now, Stian wants to share how he directs the erratic energy that lives in his head through the art form of spontaneous freestyle rap - to find a new brain state, where overclocking and stretching the limits of the flow state can actually create a meditative effect.Stian Macshane | MC & Corporate Showreel
Macshane | Entertainment Showreel
BBC News - Stian Macshane - ADHD, A.I & Creativity
We had the pleasure of working with Macshane, who performed at one of our young adult events in Perth. Beyond his freestyle comedy skills, Macshane is an uplifting voice for those with ADHD. ... keep reading ADHD WA
Macshane did a brilliant job. He was easy to liaise with and professional in his approach, he got the vibe just right and ensured the proceedings were fun, without losing the importance.
Macshane entertained our team at our EOFY celebrations... Stian's ability on the mic was exceptional, leaving the team in awe of his skills and roaring with laughter. He effectively incorporated our company's values and culture into the event. We highly recommend him for any event requiring a professional and dynamic MC or performer.
I have never seen a crowd so engaged and cheering from start to finish. All our residents were laughing their hearts out. I especially loved the crowd work, to think so fast and rhyme from the random words given by the people, it was amazing.
Macshane was a star for our corporate event offering freestyle rapping to guests on entrance at our awards night. He matched the brief perfectly, had great comedic timing and was the perfect hype man to start guests journey on the night.
