I just work here
Today I went along with pals on one final Fringe outing: a comedian named Benji Waterstones whose niche springs from his other job as an NHS psychiatrist. What better source of entertainment for the mad posse, eh?
The jokes relied heavily on good old British self-deprecation but inevitably they also mined the endlessly amusing content of his patients' lives. Coated in sympathy for their troubles, brandishing his compassion like a certificate for perfect attendance, Waterstones essentially spent the hour defending his position as enforcer of the status quo. Any qualms his conscience offered were squashed with the righteousness of his profession.
Do they still do electroshock therapy? Haha – it's just like switching off and on your glitchy PC. Do they still have padded cells? Why no: they now have isolation rooms with nothing but a mattress on the floor - so much more civilised. The goon squad heavies who forcibly restrain and inject the patients with tranquilisers? All part of keeping the world safe from werewolves. And that paranoid schizophrenic gone off his meds? A murderous threat. Obviously.
Waterstones means well, there's no doubt of that. He bared his own vulnerability quite openly: the trauma of an alcoholic and overbearing mother, his struggle to form intimate relationships, his confession to the GP that he was d-e-p-r-e-s-s-e-d. But this was his self-confessed motivation for becoming a psychiatrist: to learn trade secrets that might shed light on his own neuroses. And his bared vulnerability was just as much part of the performance, triumphantly cast aside at the end with a sequence depicting emotional catharsis in his therapist's office and the ultimate fruit to prove success: a steady girlfriend. Aw well done!
I don't mean to sound so scathing, honestly I don't. It's just that the entire point of this show rests on the perpetuation of the mainstream mental health paradigm, and I see that as far more dangerous than anyone off their meds. It pretends to champion the ordinary person's struggles to stay afloat, but it does nothing to challenge the assumptions and power dynamics keeping the ordinary person held under. Waterstones upholds psychiatry, despite it being essentially violent: a demand for behavioural conformity, an othering of the human person. It's no wonder that this comedy has won awards, and the forthcoming book has been purchased for a television adapatation. Our society rewards those who support dominating power, never those who question it.
So reluctantly I pan this ostensibly well-meaning show. From my position on the mattress in the isolation room, I'm just not laughing.
Photo by Cory Mogk on Unsplash