Time permitting, there is an audience Q&A at the end of Benji Waterhouse’s new show, Maddening. It is, he admits, “probably people’s best chance to speak to an NHS psychiatrist without the 12-month waiting list.”
It’s a good joke and painfully true at the same time. Mental health is a desperately under-resourced part of the NHS as Waterhouse, consultant psychiatrist, comedian and author, would be the first to tell you.
Why that is such a tragedy is just one of the takeaways of this funny, fascinating and at times disturbing show.
Waterhouse made his hour-long Fringe debut in 2023. Two years later he is a much more assured, confident performer. Confident to be performing two different shows at this year’s Fringe. (He also has a work-in-progress show, Second Opinion, on at 11.45am at the Caves.)
But what remains unchanged is his compassion, his humour and storytelling nous.
Telling tales from his career as a junior doctor, he addresses some of the ethical dilemmas psychiatrists face on a day-to-day basis. There are stories here he has told before. The man who thinks he’s a werewolf. The son who is hearing voices that might be telling him to kill his mother. But they have been remixed and updated. And others that are new. Fair warning, there’s a “human wine” story here that may put you off a bottle of red for life.
This is a show about the challenges of working in mental health and the all-too rare and all-too small but still thrilling rewards. It’s also a show that will have you writing to your MP demanding more investment in mental health care. It’s the very least we can do.
Benji Waterhouse: Maddening, 19.00 Beneath at Pleasance Courtyard, 5pm, until August 25
