‘Fruitcake’ seemingly designates the human beings Rob Gee is going to tell us about as he takes the stage at the Gryphon Theatre. A few minutes into his monologue, however, we’re not too sure if the term doesn’t equally describe him.

In a distinctively regional English accent, he provides us with a running commentary on patients he has encountered during twelve years working as a qualified psychiatric nurse in the UK and Australia. 

Any earnestness he may feel about such a role is well tempered with humour and an understandable detachment. We hear about the two patients who apparently tried robbing a bank (spoiler averted), the man who is in for using produce as a weapon in Pak’n’Save, those who want to self-harm and must be dealt with practically …

Gee doesn’t stop at stories about patients. There’s the Polish nurse who, attempting to describe patient behaviour, uses a wrong word for slapping. And the psychiatrist who somehow committed himself to a psychiatric ward.

It’s a relief to see a performer without a microphone – often unnecessary anyway. Transitions are signalled by blackouts.

Gee’s narrative is informative, absorbing, sometimes salutary. He requires an audience member to demonstrate restraints. The performance culminates in a song and dance number, notable for its frisky words and moves.

If there are Ten Commandments here, I don’t pick up on them. Gee’s intention is to reveal without judging, enjoy without demeaning. The nearest he gets to a moral or a message is: “Instincts don’t let you down”. His seem to have survived.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Being new to this review-writing gig and a studious type, I’ve brought a pen to make notes on the programme, which I balance on the only book in my bag (Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine). I see a fellow audience member look at me in my expectant note-taking position and realise I’ve erred.

Rob Gee, a former psychiatric nurse, is a tall, expressive chap with an English accent and an NHS lanyard. He warms us up with a lively yarn about a psychiatric inpatient he once met who robbed a bank with water pistols.

Things (rightly) take a turn for the earnest as he explains that given the right set of stressors any one of us could become mentally ill, and that mental illness symptoms are just amplified versions of normal thoughts and behaviours. My inner politically correct activist relaxes; as someone who has *ahem* had contact with mental health services on occasion, I think it’s great to laugh about the absurdities of mental illness, as long as it’s not at the expense of the mentally ill.

The rest of the show is a series of skits and monologues documenting the stories of the patients (and staff) from one night shift on an acute psych ward. These are punctuated by voiceover from ‘God’ delivering the titular Ten Commandments of the Psych Ward. (God is, of course, a Jamaican woman). 

It’s an hour of genuine belly laughs, and I actually spit out my drink laughing at one about trolleys. But peppered throughout the laughter are stories that give us pangs of empathy, and a truly touching moment when Rob describes being recognised and thanked by a former patient in a bar.

The act finishes with a song, and it’s testament to how much I enjoyed the show that I sing along for the chorus without reluctance.

Fruitcake is on until Wednesday at the Fringe Festival Club, 20 Princes St, and I’d definitely recommend checking it out. I’m told laughter is good for your mental health. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer