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Subject: The Link Between Comedy And Depression
Replies: 104 Views: 8643

tinydude 12.08.14 - 11:02pm


Robin Williams was one of many comedians who made people laugh while simultaneously struggling with a personal darkness. Are comics more pr*ne to depression - and if so, why?

''It doesn't take a genius to work out that comedians are a little bit nuts.'' Those were the words of comedian Susan Murray earlier this year, responding to an academic study that suggested comedians had unusual psychological traits linked with psychosis.

It takes a certain type of person to stand up and make a fool of themselves in public. But there is a difference between being a bit zany and suffering mental health problems.

However, the image of comedians as tortured souls who tell jokes in an attempt to dispel their inner demons has become common over the years.

Kenneth Williams once said: ''I certainly wouldn't call myself a happy human being. All the comedians I've known have been deeply depressive people, manic depressive... They kept it at bay with this facade.'' * +

tinydude 12.08.14 - 11:03pm


Tony Hanc*ck took his own life. Spike Milligan suffered profound depression and published a book titled Depression And How To Survive It.

Peter Cook, John Cleese, Ruby Wax, Jack Dee, Caroline Aherne and David Walliams are among the others who have spoken about their inner turmoil.

Stephen Fry, who has bipolar disorder, presented a TV documentary titled The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006. Last year, he revealed he had tried to kill himself in 2012.

Fry said: There are times when I'm doing QI and I'm going, 'ha ha, yeah, yeah' and inside I'm going, 'I want to die.' ''

Robin Williams was also reported to have had bipolar disorder, which seriously affects the mood, with people swinging between phases of extreme happiness and creativity to severe, crushing depression. * +

peta 12.08.14 - 11:03pm
It's an internalizing cover up fiasco?! (dunno) * +

obsidian21 12.08.14 - 11:04pm
Wow... * +

tinydude 12.08.14 - 11:05pm


''Among the creative professions, it's very, very common,'' says comedy producer and performer John Lloyd, who made the TV series QI and Blackadder and is himself bipolar.

''There's a very, very high incidence of bipolar disorder. It's because stable people think the world's fine as it is. They don't see any particular need to change it.

''Creative people don't feel like that. People who want to change the world tend to suffer a lot for it.''

Comedians, Lloyd adds, are more likely to have extremes of personality because they are ''more extreme people''.

''Robin Williams was a complete genius and did an enormous body of work. You can't do that if you're just depressed. You're more likely to do that if you're bipolar and you have terrific bursts of creative activity.

''And there's a price for everything. Often, and I know this as a television producer, if you've finished a series and you've been on a high with pumping adrenalin every day, when you come down from it you're really low. It's punishing.'' * +

tinydude 12.08.14 - 11:06pm


In January, academics from the University of Oxford published the results of research into comedians' psychological traits (this is the report Susan Murray was responding to above).

Professor Gordon Claridge, of the University of Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology, studied personality questionnaires filled in by 523 comedians (404 men and 119 women) from the UK, US and Australia.

''We found that comedians had a rather unusual personality profile, which was rather contradictory,'' Prof Claridge says.

''On the one hand, they were rather introverted, depressive, rather schizoid, you might say. And on the other hand, they were rather extroverted and manic.

''That was a rather unusual profile. The actors we compared them with didn't show that, and this was highly significantly different from the norms on the test.

''Possibly the comedy - the extroverted side - is a way of dealing with the depressive side. Of course, this is not true of all comedians.'' * +

tinydude 12.08.14 - 11:08pm


It is not. Not every comedian has difficulties, and depression is far from particular to creative personalities.

Depression is the single biggest killer of men aged 20-49 in the UK, according to the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm). It touches all corners of society.

Dr Nick Maguire, a senior lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Southampton, says there may be a connection between depression and comedy - but ''it's certainly not a very strong one''.

However, he says different people have different ways of coping.

''People often isolate themselves,'' he explains. ''Another way of temporarily reducing the impact of those emotions is to make people laugh, to make people like you.

''Unfortunately, the release can sometimes be very temporary. It's fine as long as it's happening, but when you go home again, what do you do?'' * +

itstragik 12.08.14 - 11:10pm
I get very depressed it's like an outlet getting all the stuff out of you that's why I like coming onto sites like this you can have a banter instead of going into the dark places in your mind or maybe he just had lots of regrets in later life that he had gone down a path he wasn't wanting to go down like royal perfomance ? that was hearbreaking seeing a man of such talent tone down his act so much for mainstream tv watched by millions when he was so contraversial in his early career * +

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