Benji Waterstones @ Pleasance Courtyard
Psychiatrist by day, comedian by night, Benji Waterstones' debut show gives mental health thoughtful treatment
Benji Waterstones is exactly the type of person you’d picture as a psychiatrist; probably an evaluation he’s used to hearing about himself. Softly spoken and gently mannered, spending an hour in his comedy chair is a reflective experience that leaves you reconsidering the lens through which we view mental health.
Over the course of the hour he takes us through his experiences as a psychiatrist and those of his patients. We see the effects of events that happened in his childhood, and their impact on his own mental health whilst also helping people experiencing psychosis on a day-to-day basis.
It’s a sensitive matter, mining the experiences of others for laughs, but he treads this task delicately. Perhaps through the care taken in its treatment, though, some of the show’s comedic elements are weakened. That’s not at all to say that jokes are absent from this hour. There are moments of brilliance that shine through: for example, when the events of Waterstones’ life build up to a tipping point for his own mental health, and he acts out the release of that build up when he goes to visit his own therapist. It's a release for our own tension as audience members, contrasting effectively against the absurdity of realities otherwise shared.
But much of the time, punchlines feel more like subsidiary asides to the wider story – meaning that a lot of the hour’s humour relies on the strength of those stories being funny in and of themselves. True, there is a certain macabre gaiety to some of the situations psychiatrists find themselves in, but possibly those things are darkly funnier to the person they're happening to than they are an outsider.
What would be unfair, though, is dismissing of You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here on this basis alone. In fact, in many ways it excels as a fascinating and genuinely moving account of how our society’s services are failing not only us but those who are tasked with delivering them.
Benji Waterstones: You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here, Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Below), until 28 Aug (not 12, 21), 4.30pm, £9-10