6 minute read
What’s so funny about being a Key Worker?
When hard work and humour collide, laughter can become the best medicine HAZEL DAVIS reports.
“I don’t think anyone wants a chuckle when I am inserting a suppository …”
I say, I say, did you hear the one about laughter being the best medicine? At the intersection of life, death and laughter lurk a group of Key Workers who, at the end of their shift, swap their scrubs and tabards for the bright lights of the stage.
Kevin Caswell-Jones from Wrexham has been a nurse since 1990, working in ITU since 1997. He left nursing in 2011 for a 9-5 job, returning during Covid and he’s been on the nurse bank ever since. He’s also been a keen comedy fan for the last 25 years.
“There was a time when it was quite rare – you had to seek it out and make considerable effort to get your fix,” he laughs, “I had always been able to make the coffee room/friends/family laugh and like everyone else in the business, I loved the sound of that but I was never sure if they were laughing at me or with me. I had this overwhelming itch though. Could I do the same to a room full of strangers?”
Eventually, Kevin says he began to understand the mechanics of a joke: ”the shapes and patterns and I also understood why some comics’ delivery was better than others.” His erratic shift work didn’t lend itself very well to stand-up but in 2016 fellow comic, Paul White, started running comedy courses in Leeds. “The graduation was a gig in a small room – five minutes to a room full of strangers,” Kevin says. He was so nervous he took two days’ leave: ”One day for the five-minute gig and the next one to get over it.” The audience was supportive and although he thought, “I didn’t sound anything like my true voice,” he was hooked.
Kevin quickly became active on the circuit, doing open-mic nights and becoming part of a small network.
“I’d pick up open spots [free gigs] and start to enter gong-show competitions where the reward is a longer spot or being booked by someone who sees you do well.” Pre-Covid, he says, “I once drove four hours to Brighton to do a free 10-minute spot”.
These days he drives less and mostly books and runs a successful comedy night in Wrexham but he’s had his fair share of highs and lows as a stand-up, notably “the Comedy Station in Blackpool where everything landed perfectly in a rowdy room and my first time doing a 10-minute spot at the Comedy Store. Driving three hours to Hull to play to four disinterested punters sticks in the mind …”.
Humour can be an incredibly useful skill to have in nursing, Kevin says: “People like it even in the most stressful and horrible circumstances. I’ve had cards and letters from bereaved families commenting on the humour that made it all somehow a little better, though I don’t dare over-analyse it, I just instinctively seem to know what feels right.”
Sharpness from stand-up can also be useful for disarming bad-tempered health care professionals (“for example, surgeons…”) trying to throw their weight around, says Kevin, “They seldom do it twice …”
Fellow comic and fellow nurse Maxine Wade wanted to be a stand-up since the age of nine. “In one school assembly we all had to tell a joke. I pored over my jokes for hours and eventually went with the classic ‘A horse walks into a bar ....’ gag. I got a big laugh, and I was hooked.” She started stand-up in 2014, taking a short break and coming back in full force in 2019 –“I think we can all agree this was pretty terrible timing on my part” – qualifying as a nursing associate in 2022.
She now gigs at least once or twice a week, fitting it in around her home life and nursing job. “I gig all over but tend to stay in the north,” she says, “In the past year alone I have gigged in Liverpool, Manchester, Hull. Sunderland, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Sheffield. York and Leicester, to name a few – it’s a great way to see the UK.”
Maxine agrees that humour is excellent in her line of work:
“Often people’s hospital stays are peppered with anxiety and quite stressful conversations so I think it is good to be able to lighten the mood where I can and if it is appropriate, though I don’t think anyone wants a chuckle when I am inserting a suppository.”
But it works both ways too. “It really helps give me a bit of perspective,” Maxine says, “No one likes a bad gig but you can’t realistically rip the roof off every time. When I go to work and see my patients and the astounding fortitude they show, it makes me realise it’s all irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It definitely keeps you humble doing stand-up one night and then the next morning be cleaning up vomit or sorting through stool samples …”.
Other funny Key Workers
Angela Barnes
Mock The Week stalwart Angela Barnes trained as a nurse after university. She told Beyond The Joke: “You realise that comedy doesn’t really matter that much when you’ve come from doing a job where people’s lives matter. During the pandemic we found out who was essential and comedians weren’t essential. Nurses and doctors were. So we’re sort of a luxury item.”
Jo Brand
Much has been made of Jo Brand’s former career as a psychiatric nurse. In 2014 she was honoured by Canterbury Christ Church University for her work in mental health nursing. She told an audience at the Hay Festival that she once followed a patient around for two days to ensure she had not killed him.
Romesh Ranganathan
Romesh Ranganathan worked as a maths teacher before becoming one of the most beloved faces in UK comedy. He’s previously talked about how he assumed it was a job he’d be doing for the rest of his life, despite the long hours and workload.
Chris Washington
Wigan-born Chris Washington started doing stand-up in 2012. In 2017, he made his Edinburgh Fringe debut with his self-produced show “Dream Big (Within Reason)” after taking all his annual leave in his full-time job as a postman. The gamble paid off and that year Chris received a nomination for Best Newcomer, despite having no management, promoter or PR.
