Nish Kumar has said that comedy is an “incredibly important and useful” tool for discussing mental health.
The comedian said that seeing issues being talked about on stage can have a “really powerful and potent” affect on normalising discussions around them.
He said: “I think using comedy as a tool to raise awareness around serious issues like mental health is incredibly important and useful.
“I personally find that I’m more susceptible to engage with ideas if someone is making me laugh around them.
“It can be a way of sugar-coating a pill.
“You can get across really important information that people need to hear and they don’t even realise they are being told, it just seeps in.”
Kumar is set to perform in the Comedy Against Living Miserably television programme, which aims to tackle mental health issues by raising awareness and funds.
He will be starring in the second episode of the charity show alongside fellow comedians Suzi Ruffell, Darren Harriott and Seann Walsh.
The Mash Report host added that “part of why people go to see comedy, beyond just to have a laugh, is to have a sort of communal shared experience”.
“To see people talk about issues and have them normalised can be a really powerful and potent thing,” he said.
Kumar added that it can be “easier to talk more openly on stage than off stage because you’re looking at a group of people who you may never see again”.
“There’s a freedom in that anonymity to share things that you might not want to share or feel comfortable sharing with people that you know really well,” he said.
Comedy Against Living Miserably airs on Dave at 9pm on April 22.
