Gerard Harris seeks your attention with new show at Wandsworth Arts Fringe Festival

“Have you ever found out some key fact about your life half way through?” asks comedian Gerard Harris, who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 40. “How can you keep that quiet?”

The award-winning standup comic is bringing his show Attention Seeker, which looks back at his life in light of his diagnosis, to the Wandsworth Arts Fringe Festival next month.

The part-comedy and part-storytelling show tells the tale of Mr Harris’ life from age two to the present, covering topics such as his school days, his journey into comedy, his OCD and Tourettes and meditation.

He said: “It’s billed as a comedy, and it’s billed as a comedy about comedy.

“It’s about the comedy world, about stand-up in particular and my journey into it, and about me dragging myself up onstage in the first place.”

Mr Harris’ road to stand up has been long and definitely not always easy.

He started off writing jokes with a friend, who went on to become a successful comedian, leaving Mr Harris trailing in his wake.

He said: “I had no confidence, and there was no way I was going to get up and do it myself.

“There’s very few people who run head first to the stage and the microphone – most people are very reluctant. Every stand-up has had horror stories and had fear, but mine was off the scale.”

As well as ADHD, Mr Harris has Tourette’s Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, neither of which helped his career.

He said “If there’s ever a thing that would ever keep a person away from doing the thing they want to do, it’s having magical thoughts about the causal relationship between doing one thing and another thing happening.

“There is no causal relationship between these things, but when you’re obsessed over the things that you really want to do, or the things you really don’t want to do, or both, you get so tangled up that you end up not being able to do anything.”

Mr Harris has had Tourette’s Syndrome since he was a child. He said: “Honestly it’s a really tough one for anyone to deal with. But putting yourself up in public when you don’t have control over your body or of your throat, and the sounds you make –it was really tough.”

These days Mr Harris is performing regular shows and has won awards for his comedy.

How has he overcome his confidence issues? “I’m not sure I have,” he said. “I’m one of those people who will only do something when the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.

“It really took an immense amount of frustration before I realised it was easier to go and do the damn thing than it was to put it off.”

Gerard Harris: Attention Seeker will be performed in the garden at St Mary’s Church, Putney High Street on July 9 and 10.

Tickets are £10 and can be purchased here: https://www.wandsworthfringe.com/whats-on-2021//attention-seeker