There was an overwhelming reason Harriet Dyer won the Neurodiversity Representation Award at our ceremony. On the surface Dyer is an accomplished stand-up comic, but their chaotic delivery belies a life shaped by bipolar and processing trauma. Yet, her approach to surviving is totally hers.
Earlier this month we sat down to chat about the making of the show, her openness about her Bipolar Disorder, and how as a settled experienced Fringer, she’s traded boozy nights out with fellow comedians, for calming walks in Musselburgh.
Despite the title, nothing can prepare you for Harriet detailing the experiences of sexual abuse as a young teenager. ‘I never thought I’d talk about it on stage because I thought it would be depressing,’ She tells me with her characteristic emphatic gestures. ‘But, over lockdown I wrote a book [Bipolar Comedian] which covered it and then I realised there were funny parts in it, I thought can I make this into a show that’s funny enough? I felt that my business was already out there’.
Harriet talks about the fact of being open on stage was met by opposition by promoters and theatre staff ‘I had a preview where the woman was a fucking nightmare, so that was upsetting as I waited so long to talk about it, how dare she send an email to apologise on my behalf to people!’
When you see the show, you’re disarmed by its honesty, its shocking revelations are delivered realistically; this is what actually happened. Harriet eschews the standard manipulation of many stand-ups, where shock and grief are almost engineered into the set at the 40 minute mark. ‘I’ve been to other stand-ups shows with friends, and they start crying, and I look at them like ‘no’, I know what they’re doing’. Harriet explains. ‘That to me is not what I wanted to do. Over the years, I’ve done a lot of fringes. A lot of acts will have directors, but I did it all myself, I have this office, I go to each morning, and I looked over it, like a play really.’
Does it still have an emotional punch, I ask? ‘Not so much, I feel like now it’s happened to someone else, and maybe that’s how you get through it. I find it hard, and maybe this is a selfish thing, when audiences get dramatic, and I’m like ‘well it didn’t really happen to you’’
I mention Harriet’s father who features in the show and is all for Cornish Independence, ‘I don’t want him to watch the show, I want to hang out with him, but -‘ I interject and confess that he’s started following us on twitter, ’that man needs to calm the fuck down!’
We talk about what it is like for family to hear about something so painful and upsetting, ‘I’m fine, I don’t want my dad to feel guilt, he’s a pensioner,’ This led to a moment of reflection, thinking, should we not speak about what happened to us, for fear of how others will feel. Why should we worry about what our truth does to other people?
Harriet remains unfazed, she feels she has the stand-up game sussed by now. ‘People are nice to me, it used to get lonely because of the travel, I won’t gig if it’s not worth it, now I am conscious of my mental health, I don’t ignore it, I take my meds. Here at the fringe, I’m not in the town, I’m down by the seaside, I bus in, do the show, and get out, it’s much better for me’.
Harriet Dyer was talking to Simon Jay.
