Chris Gethard: Career Suicide

Mental illness, specifically depression, has sprung from the shadows of stigma and become a recurrent topic for standup at this year's Fringe, with a proliferation of comics willing to tackle it on stage. You'll find few that handle it as deftly and as amusingly as Chris Gethard, though. 

Career Suicide is his expertly pitched account of his own battles with disorders of the mind over the last 16 years. It's beautifully crafted misery, finding the levity in all the right moments whilst anchoring it in raw emotion and consequence. His searing wit springs to life in the quietest of lulls, always tethered to a genuine depth of thought. The New Jerseyan comedian has found fame in goofball TV shows and CollegeHumor videos, but those roles are in stark contrast to the poignant musings offered here. This show is his Rubber Soul – his graduation from the juvenile to the masterly. 

From tales of his hilariously unprofessional psychiatrist, Barb, to darkly comic anecdotes about suicide, he balances the pathos and the ridiculous. As the hour progresses and the stakes are raised, it's near impossible not to find yourself hanging on his every word, not caring if it's a punchline or an emotional gut punch that follows.

He's candid in his storytelling and that's what makes it so refreshingly intimate. It's rare to see taboo-tearing comedy find such optimism in times of despair. Here, Gethard seeks to elicit laughs from the low points, and he succeeds big-time.