Comedy / harriet dyer
Harriet Dyer: ‘There’s nothing that’s mended me like comedy’
Harriet Dyer is eating cherries in my kitchen, thoughtfully suggesting ideas for a street-based sharing scheme for “sprigs of rosemary, or whatever anyone’s got”.
Born and raised in Truro, Cornwall, where her family still live, the acclaimed Live at the Apollo comedian studied in Wolverhampton, before spending time in Birmingham and then Manchester.
Now she has moved to Bristol, an adopted home which is suiting her very well. On the cusp of a brand-new tour of her new show, Easily Distra…, I find Dyer in fine fettle, reflecting on the assimilation of her personal and professional life.
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How are you doing at the moment?
“Really good I think. I’ve moved to Bristol and I’m very happy – everything’s better in the sun I find. It’s a very friendly and accepting place, and in other places people look at me like I’m weird but in Bristol I just look like everyone else.
“I was having lunch with a friend and someone walked past me with a cat on their shoulder, and I thought ‘I’m in the right place’.”
“It’s important to find the funny in otherwise bleak times”, you’ve said. How would you describe the ways in which your own comedy and your mental health interrelate?
“When I started in comedy, in my first ever gig I told a really personal story about how I died twice. I was at university and no one liked me (I mean I was a nightmare), but when I went on stage and told that story everyone found it hysterical, and gave me a lot of love. I thought it was mad that I’d been open and honest about something and everyone laughed and accepted it, so that was in my head from the off.
“The really personal stuff that I’ve done since – including Trigger Warning (2022), which talked about child abuse, rape and trauma – has been therapeutic and given me relief. You have to be at a stage though; after my mum died I tried to talk about that and found that I couldn’t yet. So sometimes you have to let things percolate – and then when I have found the funny in it I have always felt better.
“I’ve tried so much counselling over the years and there’s nothing that’s mended me like comedy. It’s allowed me to tell truthful things on my terms, own them, watch them sail down the river, and move on.”
Harriet Dyer at Live at The Apollo – photo: BBC
To what degree has working things out on stage helped you to get to know yourself better?
“I think comedy is a lot of my identity now. And as the years go on, I become happier and happier than I’ve ever been. I always used to people-please, whereas now I feel very lucky to know who I am. I’m not very sociable and I’m now very good at, if someone says ‘do you want to do this?’ saying ‘absolutely not, that sounds awful’.
“I’m 100 per cent an extrovert introvert. I have to battle myself to get out, but when I’m out it’s always so good. It should be a lesson then, but the same thing happens every time.”
Who makes you laugh?
“There are loads of comedians that grew up watching other comedians and a lot of them grow up to be another version of those inspirations. I didn’t really have that, but my mum was just so funny – so I used to really laugh at her (with her). And stories and simple, daft stuff really appeals to me.
“Now that I do comedy myself, people like Diane Morgan I find really funny, and I love the podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me. Paul Foot, too, I find wonderfully silly.”
On stage, you have quite a distinctive way with words. Do you enjoy playing with language and phrasing as part of your process, or is it more instinctive?
“Yes, I think so. My partner says he feels like he’s going out with an old lady. Some of it I got from a very Christian lady I used to work with who always used to tell me off for blaspheming, so I picked up some of her language so that I didn’t offend her. And my mum was such an old soul; she would speak in an old-fashioned way. I just think in a job where we’re using so many words, we should also be using spent ones.”
You have won an award for neurodivergent representation, and have also written and performed material about being bipolar. Have you been surprised by the extent to which your work resonates with audiences?
“Yes. Loads of people have told me that it feels like I narrate what they’re thinking. And even now when I don’t mention it as much anymore (though it still comes out from time to time), people still thank me for talking about it.
“When I did my mental health show in the north, the idea was to do new material about it every month, and I thought ‘I hope people that are new don’t think – ah, she hasn’t said anything about it this time’ – but people in the audience said ‘I mean, they’ll know anyway’. So it tends to seep out regardless.”
Although it’s often delivered through a whimsical lens, you are always characteristically honest in your standup. In terms of where your material derives from, where do you start?
“Now that I’ve done a good few shows, sometimes I think – ‘how am I ever going to come up with anything more?’ And then last time I went home to Cornwall, everything my brother and dad were saying, I was writing down, thinking ‘there’s something in that’.
“On the whole I’ll just keep making notes. But sometimes I’ve been drifting off to sleep and I’ll write something down and the next day I’ll look at the note and I’ll think ‘ectoplasm sponge? That doesn’t even make sense!’
“I have so many ideas that never come to fruition. Sometimes there are good stories, but if you put the audience through a big long story and it just dwindles at the end, you feel really sorry to have them through it. So I find that hard sometimes, getting the payoffs. But it’s weird; some bits I’ll put in my club set and they don’t really work, and then the exact same bits I’ll put into a preview, and they smash.”
Harriet Dyer – photo: Andy Hollingworth
What are your experiences of Bristol audiences?
“Well here’s the thing that I’m finding tricky. I want to bring my mental health comedy night that I had in Manchester to Bristol. The whole thing about it was that it was this inclusive, safe space – but everywhere here is already inclusive! So I feel like it wouldn’t be offering much that’s new, although there still aren’t lots of accessible venues, so maybe that’s where we could focus.
“But I love it here. Everyone’s always on board. I’m compering at The Gaffe in town for a weekend a month, and every single time there are multiple stag dos in – last time there was a guy dressed as a full giraffe. But they’ve all been absolutely lovely. One guy entered the stage with his fists clenched, because his friends had told him the stage was bare knuckle fighting – despite the microphone and posters and stuff. He was so relieved that he didn’t have to fight me.
“Often in other places, there will be a certain degree of ‘well, we’ll see what we think of you’, whereas in Bristol audiences are always on side, and willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
You will be stopping at the Hen and Chicken Studio halfway through an Autumn tour of your new show Easily Distra… How did this one originate?
“I’ve just done so many serious stories over the years, and this show is just funny bits. I’m finding it really enjoyable to do, and my set is continuously being updated with bits because they’re easier to chuck in and move around than a story format would be.
“I didn’t realise until now that I can still do the same show but make it different every time. Usually, because I’m always on to the next idea, I can get rid of shows too quickly. I’m already thinking ‘ah I’ll go to Edinburgh next year with a different show’. I’ve got no ideas for it yet, but in terms of promo, my brain is thinking ‘I want to have a red rubber hat like Feathers McGraw’.”
Harriet Dyer: Easily Distra… is at the Hen and Chicken Studio on October 17 at 8pm. Tickets are available at www.thecomedybox.co.uk. For more information visit www.harrietdyer.com or follow @harrietdyercomedy.
Main photo: Rishi Issar
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