A marathon of joy and stress: comics with chronic health problems on completing the Edinburgh Fringe
AAn hour before she was due to go on stage for the first show of her month-long Edinburgh Fringe run, Nina Gilligan lay in a dark room, hoping her medication would kick in. She was suffering from severe migraines, one of the symptoms of her chronic pain condition fibromyalgia, which affects an estimated one in 20 people, mostly women.
All month long, on top of the universal constraints – financial risks, career dangers, social pressures – she has been dealing with an additional, invisible challenge.
“You can’t time it. You can’t control it,” she says. “So I’m lying in bed and I know I have to drag myself out of it, take more medication on top of the medication I’ve already been on, and drag myself through it.”
Gilligan’s migraines not only cause pain, but also temporary memory loss, leaving her grasping for words. Not ideal for stand-up comedy. They tend to come in a three-day cycle. “You get the aura symptoms, where I get the memory loss. Then the headache. Then the hangover. And it just repeats.”
You wouldn’t know it at that night’s performance. Gilligan was sparkling, hilarious, in control, playing Goldfish, a complex show that explored her fibromyalgia, memory loss and the things she’ll never forget: the times her pain was ignored and a particular transgression by a man in comedy. She’s learned to “mask” the pain, she says.
Getting a diagnosis for her myriad symptoms—pain, difficulty swallowing, digestive issues, fatigue—wasn’t easy. She faced a lack of knowledge and widespread disbelief from healthcare professionals. On one show, when she mentioned fibromyalgia, “a young doctor yelled, ‘It’s not real!’”
On her show Square Peg, Bella Humphries discusses symptoms that have been misdiagnosed for years. Humphries has premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), an endocrine disorder that affects up to 8 percent of menstruating people. During the luteal phase of her cycle, the one to two weeks before a period, Humphries experiences life-disrupting symptoms, from deep depression and anxiety to muscle aches and overwhelming fatigue. “I get this real sense of paranoia, like everyone is staring at me, and often when I wake up I feel like I’ve committed a crime,” she says.
Spending the whole month in Edinburgh meant I could guarantee that this would be part of her festival experience. “Over the last 18 months my PMDD has gotten worse,” she says. “PMDD doesn’t mix well with stress and 18 months coincides with when I decided to do the fringe!”
Stress, as well as loud noise and bright lights, can trigger Gilligan’s symptoms, so there’s anxiety. Humphries has similar concerns: “I’m disconnected from all my support systems, the things I do to feel good and protect myself.”
Last year, Garrett Millerick felt a new sense of dread as August approached. He’s been going to the Fringe since he was 19, first as a student, then as a theater director, then as a stand-up comedian. “When I stopped drinking, the Fringe became a point in my schedule that I was terrified of, because for so many years it was associated with partying,” he says. “I had no idea how to handle that.”
He documented the transformation on his 2023 show, Never Had It So Good, and has now been sober for 18 months. We meet for coffee early on a Saturday morning. “If this was 2015, I would have gotten out of bed and given you half-answers,” he says. “Then I would have left this place with a breakdown about what I said, did I make a fool of myself?”
In 2022, worried about rebuilding a career after the pandemic, Millerick “really leaned on booze,” starting with a post-show pint and eventually drinking about 12 pints a day. “You’re at your most vulnerable when you come off stage because you’re on adrenaline. Your brain is saying, ‘Chase the high, chase the high.’ So after the show you have to go home. Shower, change, reset, have a cup of tea.”
It was easy to romanticize drinking as part of comedy. But it turns out there were other sober people on the fringe all along. A friend, who first took him to get help, told him, “There’s never going to be a party or a bar where there’s not another person around who can help.” When he joined the city’s support networks, “I now know sober people I can reach out to and talk to at any time.”
To protect herself, Humphries takes antidepressants, exercises regularly and avoids socializing at certain times, “because my social battery runs out very quickly.” Gilligan also prioritizes rest and avoids extra gigs to focus on her show: “Your energy becomes a precious resource and you have to figure out how to spend it.”
Two weeks later, we speak again. Gilligan has met the owners of a quiet café where she can recharge. Fortunately, her worst day of pain has come on a designated day off, but her symptoms have crept into some shows. “I’ve had a few moments where I’ve had to stop and I can’t find the words,” she says.
Humphries is now at the stage of her cycle where she’s flooded with uplifting hormones, but her worst day came about a week later. “I just felt like there was no point, I couldn’t see anything good in it,” she says. “But it wasn’t about the festival.” Now that Humphries understands PMDD and how it affects her, “I don’t panic. I know now that I don’t really feel that way, it’s just a symptom.”
That did make performing the show more difficult, “but I still enjoy doing comedy when I feel that way because that’s the one time when I don’t have to think about anything else.”
Gilligan agrees – reminding herself to enjoy each show and be in the moment with each audience helped. “When you have a chronic illness, you prioritize the things you love, and I love this job.”
Millerick stuck to his strategies. “Last year I remembered that stand-up comedy is my favorite thing, that’s the party. Everything else ruined the party for me. It took me a while to remember why I love it so much. I enjoyed these two fringes a lot more than I did in previous years.” The fact that many people exacerbate their mid-fringe breakdowns with alcohol only reinforced his conviction.
All three cite human connection. Gilligan’s son lives in Edinburgh and has cooked for her. Friends and family have also been supportive: “I hope they know how much it means. I’ve been dealing with it alone for a long time.” Joking about PMDD has helped her “feel some power over it,” she says. “I still wish I didn’t have it, but it makes it less scary.” Listening to people in the audience who have PMDD “weighs up all the bad stuff. When I was feeling alone, it was a lifesaver to hear people talk about it.”
Millerick has asked comedians to express their curiosity about sobriety and encourages them to reach out to anyone who has spoken publicly about alcoholism.
Talking about both sexual abuse and fibromyalgia has felt “empowering” for Gilligan, and many women have reached out to her after shows. “They feel validated,” she says. “Women suppress their anger and their stories because they don’t really feel like they’re going to be believed. Don’t let secrets make you sick.”
Humphries says: “Just getting to this point is a huge achievement for some people. There are a lot of things that people struggle with who are so far removed from the festival.” Looking back on the fear she felt in July, she now feels proud. “There were times when I felt like I couldn’t do this. It took some planning and sacrifice, but I did it.”