Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022: Lily Phillips shares how comedy has helped her mental health

6 June 2022

People often say to me ‘you are so brave doing comedy! It sounds absolutely terrifying! It my absolute WORST fear!’ And I’m like WOW calm down Susan, I’m sure HR has its thrills! And I still think my worst fear is being buried alive, but ok Susan that’s your view and lets be fair I made you up anyway for the purposes of this article.

Lily Phillips by Kate Gowlett

Look, I see her point, but I’m not convinced. Don’t get me wrong it is SCARY, on my way to gigs sometimes I wish I was doing literally ANYTHING else. Looking at Pigeon standing on a bin thinking, you lucky bastard! At least you don’t have to do a gig tonight!

But I find it actually works the other way around, I don’t need confidence to do stand up, stand up GIVES me confidence. It’s incredibly empowering and makes me stronger in other aspects of my life. I feel like I’m more decisive and more able to try new things. And I find it especially empowering to do it as a woman. Having a platform to express myself is incredibly satisfying. Not to mention the connections you create with complete strangers. Like, I’m doing a bit at the moment about women hiding their poos from the world. And after shows I’m being inundated from female audience members telling me their own poo nightmare stories. So much so, I may have to do an hour on just poo next year, I think I’ll call it ‘Amber Turd’. Laughing and finding joy in a shared life experience is awesome. And I’m happy that my honesty/oversharing sparks honesty in others. As connecting with the world around you makes you feel more in control of it which reduces anxiety.

On top of that the friends I have made in comedy are some of the strongest relationships I have in my life. Comedy is a tough industry and when you find like-minded people to navigate it with, there is a deep feeling of comradery that bonds you. Some of my favourite people in comedy are people I’ve had the worst gigs with. Last year, I was gigging in a carpark in Essex, and the ‘promoter’ was just a creepy guy called John (his real name) putting on a show for his birthday/to find a new girlfriend. Which is also incidentally the only time I’ve been on a bill with 2 other female comedians, that wasn’t for a charity benefit or International Woman’s Day. On the printed running order, the final bullet point was ‘drinks with John’. Now, I had never met John and there was no way I was going to miss my last train home to celebrate his 40th, but thanks to that car park perv, the comedians started a WhatsApp group to try and process the nights events and, to this day, it’s one of my favourite WhatsApp groups. We all wonder about what John is doing now and hope to God he never puts on another gig again.