Dr Benji Waterhouse is an NHS psychiatrist who is at the Fringe to lift the lid on all things mental health.
His show Maddening is at the Pleasance and is both informative and entertaining. There’s even a Q and A – so you can ask a real mental health professional about whatever is on your mind.
Tell us about your show. Why should we go and see it?
I’m an NHS psychiatrist, so in ‘Maddening’ I unlock the doors to the psych ward.
The show uses stand-up and chapter readings to explore everything from homicide to electroshock therapy, and perhaps most disturbing of all—people who say, “Have you tried yoga?” In a world lacking staff, beds, and any actual cures, I also wonder if I should have chosen a less controversial specialty. At least in dermatology, no one is ever involuntarily moisturised.
I end each show with an audience Q&A, which is really just people’s best chance to speak to an NHS psychiatrist without the 12-month wait.
What is your favourite thing about your show?
I like telling a story about the strangest thing anyone has ever put up their penis. And he wasn’t even a psychiatric patient.
It was someone who kept getting UTI’s from doing his party trick at sex parties, which involved serving wine for his friends via his penis.
He would insert a plastic tube called a catheter up his urethra so that the bladder could be drained. Then the bag of urine was discarded and a bag of boxed wine was connected to the tube instead – I know is disgusting, isn’t it? Boxed wine.
Then the catheter was removed, and our human decanter was now ready to start serving, having somehow even one-upped Jesus Christ himself.
I didn’t dare ask where they kept the canapés. When I tell that story, audiences usually make noises you’d expect to hear in a hospital.
Do you have a Fringe idol?
So many. On the medical side: former nurses Jo Brand and Georgie Carroll, and former doctors-turned-comedians Phil Hammond and Harry Hill, for showing you can do stand-up without getting struck off.
On the other side of the doctor’s desk, probably Simon Amstell, who makes neurosis and existential angst an art form.
What three words best describe your performance style – and why?
A reviewer once described me as: “Britain’s funniest psychiatrist-comedian.” I’ll take that, even if it is from a pool of one.
Who are you looking forward to seeing in Edinburgh?
One of my comedy heroes, Alan Davies, is returning to stand-up, so I’ll definitely see him.
What do you hope to achieve in Edinburgh – what are your hopes and dreams?
I’d love to sell out my shows, flog a few books, write and road-test a solid 20,000 words for my second book, get a 5-star review that isn’t from a family member, and a Netflix special. Or, failing that, just a Netflix login.
What are the biggest obstacles you face as a performer at the Fringe?
Hecklers. But my understanding of human nature can be invaluable on stage. Now I know that if anyone heckles me, it’s because they didn’t get hugged enough as a child. My first year in Edinburgh as an open-micer, someone shouted, “You’re the worst comedian I’ve ever seen!” And I just thought: ‘But what’s this really about?’
Even the most brutal comedy put-downs are nothing compared to what I get at work. The other day, when I wouldn’t let an unwell patient leave the locked ward, he yelled: “You’re just a middle-class white boy who probably decided to be a psychiatrist after your mum once forgot you from cricket!” I had to clarify that it was actually my au pair.
What do you hope the audience will take away after an hour in your company?
I hope they’ll leave better informed about the dire state of mental health services and have fewer Hollywood-fuelled misconceptions about serious mental illness. For example, alcohol and drugs are a bigger risk factor for homicide than schizophrenia—so statistically I’m safer in a patient’s home than at a psychiatrist’s house party.
But I also hope they laugh and realise that even in the darkest of places, there’s usually some lightness. Like the time I was so tired completing section papers that I accidentally mixed up the boxes for my name and the patient’s, and technically detained myself.
How do you plan to relax and recharge when not on stage?
The boring stuff: sleeping, exercising, eating at least one vegetable a day and limiting how much I drink and stalk my ex on Facebook. Then, the day after the Fringe, I’ve made the unusual decision to unwind by… moving house.
What is your idea of a perfect Fringe day?
It’s not the rock’n’roll answer you probably want—I’ve been told off before for boiling the kettle at parties. My perfect day: get some words down for my second book (even if half of those are “insert punchline here”), road test those at my work-in-progress show, have lunch, do my main show, sell/sign some books, briefly wonder what the hell I’m doing with my life as a single, childless forty-year-old, drown those thoughts out with beers and nice people, see a show or two, home by 11pm to read my book in bed, sleep and repeat. For 25 days straight.
Dr Benji Waterhouse: Maddening, 17.00 Pleasance Courtyard until August 25
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/benji-waterhouse-maddening
His book ‘You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here’, published by Vintage, is out now in paperback.
