Comedian, author and NHS anaesthetist Ed Patrick brings his latest show to Cardiff’s Glee Club on 30 September 2025. Expect a night of sharp stand-up, candid insights and brilliantly funny stories from the hospital front line.
Carl Marsh
What’s the trickiest part of finding humour in healthcare without crossing the malpractice line?
Ed Patrick
Hahahaha… Information Governance. [Laughter] So, I think there’s a lot with medicine. There are a lot of them, whether it’s doctors, nurses or other co-workers. I think part of it, and my view is that there’s a lot of tension in medicine, just by the nature of the job. A joke is about tension, and then there is a release. So there’s a buildup of tension, and then the punch line is the release for the joke. And I feel you’re constantly exposed to tension in medicine, and people use humour to release that. I think it’s okay to talk about anything from a personal perspective. And you know, my show certainly has a message, but I think it’s pretty obvious when something’s inappropriate. I think, anyway.
Carl Marsh
What inspired the title or concept behind the book and your latest comedy tour?
Ed Patrick
The title… It’s been a marketing inspiration, because basically, my book is called “Catch Your Breath” and (obviously) I’ve called the tour that. So, I thought that would obviously be good – sort of – when people are looking at the tour, they’ll see the links to that, but whereas, obviously, the book is a story about one thing, the show is actually a different story. It talks about something else. So actually, if you get the book and you come to the show, you get to see two different things, but it still resonates for the show. It’s a whirlwind experience going through my medical training, doctors’ training and becoming an anaesthetist. And, you know, we look after people’s breathing, that’s one of the things we do. So it’s very relevant in that sense too.
Carl Marsh
Does comedy help you cope with the stresses of being a doctor?
Ed Patrick
So I think that relates to what I said before: there’s a lot of tension in medicine, and you need that release. And for me, comedy has, as well as a career, always been that release… in the same way that medicine has been a release for me from comedy. Because comedy obviously sounds on the face of it all, you know, fun, but obviously there’s a lot of… It’s a job as well, so you have the same stress as you would get in another job. So medicine gives me release in that sense, too. It just seems to balance it out. I think I’m naturally looking towards, you know… people work better when relaxed. One of the things about anaesthetics, well, especially anaesthetists, is if you ask someone in medicine what an anaesthetist is like when they come to an emergency? They will say that we’re very calm and relaxed because we’ve got a particular set of skills, which sounds very much like a “Taken” movie. But we’ve got a specific set of skills, so assess them and know what we will do. There’s a lot of tension, and people perform better when they’re not tense, I think. It’s about assessing the threats and diffusing them where possible. And I think comedy is one of those things. It helps people bring people into a room, making them more aware of what’s going on there. And it has an impact on morale. So I think if you’re someone people like to work with, it’s going to improve the day.
Ed Patrick Brings Wit and Medical Mischief to Cardiff’s Glee Club Tuesday, 30th September.
