For nine years, the New Jersey comic Chris Gethard has been weighing up the qualities of his counsellor Barb, who he says is blind to boundary issues and too free with her extraterrestrial theories of the human brain. But she has been worth sticking with: Gethard’s fringe debut, Career Suicide – about his troubles with alcohol and depression – wouldn’t work without her significant cameo role.
Even by the standards of today’s mental-health-conscious comedy, Gethard’s show is intimate and explicit. It recounts his long battle with depression, from the time he crashed his car aged 21 through to an alarming onstage attack he experienced only four years ago.
Obviously, this isn’t as jolly as your usual standup show. Sometimes, when Gethard is detailing his OCD thought processes, or how medication affected his ability to ejaculate, you may want to run screaming to the nearest Spencer Jones gig. But Gethard’s openness and frankness are affecting, and he has built a comedy set around them with considerable skill and good humour.
Barb is key: we’re never far from another of her outre transgressions. But Gethard leavens even his darker moments with droll incongruities, such as “the chorus of Carmela Sopranos” who attend a failed suicide bid and the naff advertising campaign in which, during another low moment, he momentarily misplaced his trust. Here and elsewhere, what is bleakly funny – and beautifully articulated by Gethard (with help from the Smiths) – is how broken we become, how far from dignity and capability we fall, when depression takes a grip.
- At Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, until 29 August (not 15 August). Box office: 0131-226 0000.
