People talking about their mental health is boring, says Catherine Bohart. Even listening to herself do so frays the patience. So how to justify Borrowing Trouble, a new standup hour from the Irishwoman delving deep into her OCD?
Well, the justification here is the humour, rich and hard-won. But it also comes down to Bohart’s trademark candour. This is a condition so all-consuming, on this evidence, that to not address it might feel like dishonesty – which, for the 38-year-old, would be intolerably off-brand.
In this latest bulletin from Bohart’s fraught life, we find her fulfilling an ambition close to all Irish hearts, she tells us, and buying her first home. This entails moving in with her girlfriend too, a process that applies pressure on her compulsion to control. Move on to her fifth therapist, after the underachievement of the preceding four?
Try coming off antidepressants? Her doctor’s response to that suggestion does not inspire confidence. Seek refuge with her family?
Well that won’t work, as illustrated by an ill-advisedly long visit home to her parents – AKA her symptoms. Here we see mum fret intrusively on Catherine’s behalf and (in one eye-opening anecdote) dad display the type of behaviours that might, just might, suggest that obsessive compulsions run in the family. This all comes at us in a torrent from the irrepressible Bohart, who channels real-world neurosis into a wonderfully uptight and oversharing stage persona.
Her dismay at her own foibles is matched only by alarm at the inexplicable conduct of others – see her routine about disliking lesbian weddings, or the later one in which it dawns on her that her girlfriend’s masculine stylings are underpinned by no practical domestic skills whatsoever. Then there’s the section on women’s health, which argues, amusingly contrary to the received wisdom, that we all need to know and hear a lot less about it. You might think the same of comedians’ neurological disorders; Bohart certainly does.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
