Funny people

By Walter J. Lyng

Whoever it was who first said that laughter is the best medicine probably never envisioned comedy being used as a therapeutic device for persons suffering from mental illness. This, however, is the raison d’être behind Stand Up for Mental Health (SMH), an organization formed in 2004 in Vancouver which has steadily spread across Canada, finally arriving at this year’s Fringe festival.

“The idea of doing standup comedy is something that most so-called ‘normal’ people would never want to do. And the fact that these people who have been written off and marginalized are doing it is something that’s really capturing people’s attention,” says David Granirer, founder and director of SMH.

To be part of SMH, you need only have a diagnosed mental illness and the actual desire to perform stand up.

“[We take] people who really want to do it,” says Granirer. “That’s the main criteria.”

If you feel slightly awkward at the prospect of going to see a comedy show performed entirely by mentally ill stand ups, don’t feel too bad. Even current executive producer Pat Bayes says she didn’t quite embrace the concept  when she first heard about it.

 “I went to see a professional play that I paid $40 a ticket for and there was a little note in the program that said ‘Stand Up For Mental Health is going to do a mini show before the play starts,’” she says.

“It was a Friday night, I was in a bad mood and I actually sat there and said out loud to people around me, ‘I don’t want to sit here and listen to a bunch of loony tunes try to be funny.’”

Her change of heart, however, was almost immediate. “When they came out to perform, I turned scarlet with shame. It was some of the funniest comedy I’ve heard in years, and it was poignant. I got the message. It was so brilliant. I could see how empowered the comics were and how empowered the audience became.”

Granirer, who himself deals with depression, first came up with the idea for Stand Up For Mental Health while watching students in his Langara College Stand-Up Comedy Clinic course.

“Occasionally I would see someone come through and they would have a life changing experience through stand up comedy,” he says.

After a quick crash course in the basics of stand up, the participants are let loose on conferences, treatment centres, psych wards, corporations, government agencies, college and university campuses, and the general public to make good with the funny. The performers themselves come from virtually every socio-economic background imaginable.

“We have lawyers, doctors, military people, street level sex workers, folks from every single walk of life,” says Bayes.

This broad representation of Canadians within SMH is likely evidence of how wide spread mental illness really is throughout Canada. According to Bayes, even the official statistics aren’t truly reflective of the situation.

“The statistics say that one in five Canadians will deal with a mental illness in their lifetime,” she says. “We think 100 percent of Canadians will deal with mental illness either personally or through family members, their peers, the folks they work with, their neighbours or the homeless people they see on the street.”

Catching on quickly, SMH now has branches in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Abbotsford/Chilliwack, and Victoria. With approximately 150 graduates of the program out there, Bayes says the next step, in addition to expansion into the U.S., is working with the military to break down the stigma of mental illness in that field as well as launching a new program in the prisons of British Columbia.  

This novel way of approaching mental illness, according to Granirer, has come at just the right time.

“Within the mental health community, this is a time when where looking for new ways to go about peoples’ recovery and new ways to reach the public with a positive message about what these people are capable of,” he says.

David Granirer and the Comics of Stand Up for Mental Health Montreal will perform Sunday, June 13 at Le Belmont, 4483 St. Laurent Blvd. at 7 p.m. For tickets, call 514-849-3378 or visit www.montrealfringe.ca. For more information about SMH, visit www.standupformentalhealth.com.