Stuart Goldsmith is celebrating his 25th appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, having made his debut there at the age of 16. Now, he is preparing for the show with a night at the Komedia in Brighton. Jamie Walker caught up with Stuart to hear about his comedy, mental health and grilling his fellow comedians.

From the moment you start speaking to Stuart you’re hit with this infectious yearning to chat. Conversation flows out of him with such ease that it’s not difficult to see why he is so highly praised on the stand up circuit – the ability to talk, obviously, being key to the job.

Whilst this year may see Stuart celebrate a decade and a half at Edinburgh Fringe it is only his 13th as a comedian, with the other dozen years filled with street performance.

He describes his comedy as ‘open-hearted’ and ‘auto-biographical’, this includes talking about mental health.

Having been a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) patient on and off for 20 years, and spending the last four in Gestalt Psychotherapy – which Stuart himself confesses to still not knowing what it means – he admits that it has helped him learn a lot about himself.

“There were certain drives I had, and certain things I wanted to achieve, that were complete contradictory and as a result making me really unhappy.” Stuart explains.

”There were people in comedy who had more humble ambitions than mine, with happy families, and I was jealous of them but I was scared to be one of them.”

The way in which Stuart talks about this so openly shows him to be someone who has gone through the ringer and come out the other side refreshed and able to comprehend much more about not just his own mind but others as well.

It’s something he talks to other comedians about on his podcast ‘The Comedians Comedian’.

Whilst he says the general talk is more relaxed and career based, he will always go a tad persona over the course of the conversation.

“One of my favourite questions to ask people is ‘are you happy?’. I think I have a decent degree of natural empathy and so, I like to make people feel comfortable…and then ruthlessly exploite that.” He says with a chuckle.

“My favourite moments are when guests who have been on the show, I bump into them on the circuit three to six months later and they say ‘I’ve really been thinking about that thing we talked about. I’ve really tried to do that a bit more now’.

He adds that the opportunity to delve into the minds of those that share his profession is often enlightening for both parties and it can be fascinating to see the way others view both their own world and the world around them.

“When I have people on the show, I’ll say, ‘what’s your process?’ and they’ll say ‘Oh, I don’t really have a system’. I’ll tease away at them and they end up unrolling this leather roll of tools saying, ‘I do that, then that, then that, then that’ and you go, there you go that’s your system.

“I think in the same way, in terms of mental health, everyone has a particular way of looking at the world and often they’re not even aware that that’s their way of looking at the world. It’s just the glasses through which they see everything, and they don’t even know they’re wearing glasses.

Stuart also confesses that the podcast, which recently celebrated its 250th episode, has given him a platform to embrace the community he is a part of.

“It can be very isolating…as the stakes get higher I don’t think the job gets easier. Certainly, when I started there wasn’t as much appreciation for the comedian as an artist, who deserves support.

“The podcast has allowed me to grow and cultivate an audience of super comedy nerds who come and see me but also it has connected me to the comedy community. It’s enabled me to find the thing that’s always been missing for me in comedy and that’s a real sense of community and legacy.

As conversation switches to his show at the Komedia, Stuart continues to talk about how his work can be linked to any sort of mental health issues. He says that whilst he doesn’t like to sell the show as him talking about himself, but adds that it can be its own type of therapy.

“Comedy as therapy is a pretty ludicrous concept, but there can be no denying that it can be very therapeutic to go on stage every night and reveal yourself and talk about your actual feelings.”

With a final few shows to go before Edinburgh, Stuart’s excitement at returning to the scene of some of his greatest comedic triumphs is very clear to hear.

The place that has given him so much, and of course vice-versa, is a special place for Stuart and it all started with that first appearance, “I went up there when I was 16 and it completely unpeeled my head. It genuinely, hand on heart, changed my life and made me say look at all these possibilities this is incredible.”

Days removed from his performance in Brighton, he also mentions that our city has been kind to him too and isn’t surprised that it is seen as such a comedic hub, “Brighton definitely has a lot of energy. There’s a really nice mix in a room of locals and tourists, which makes for a very diverse range of reactions and voices. Obviously it has a reputation for being very alternative and people from Brighton are very proud to be from Brighton.”

Before he ventures to Scotland to take on the hordes of Fringe-goers, it is clear to see that Stuart Goldsmith is a man who is now comfortable with embracing all the hurdles and challenges life has to offer.

It gives him inspiration, comedic material and most importantly that drive to keep pushing forward and doing what he’s done so well for over a decade.

Stuart Goldsmith plays the Brighton Komedia on Sunday, June 17 before playing his ‘End Of’ show at Edinburgh Fringe across August. Visit https://www.komedia.co.uk/brighton/whats-on/ for tickets and further details.