John Ryan
Ryan is good at explaining things, so it is not a complete surprise when it transpires that his earliest ambition was to be a primary school maths teacher.
Happily for the world of comedy, this came to nothing and after leaving college fell into a job as emergency housing officer for Kensington and Chelsea.
As a father of three – he has sons of 14 and 12 and a daughter of 10 – Ryan has strong views on fatherhood. He has relished being involved, alongside his wife, at the sharp end of child rearing from the beginning. One of his badges of paternal pride is the knowledge that his GP’s notes describe him as an ‘over-protective father’.
In fact, it was his unsuccessful attempts to persuade Kensington and Chelsea to allow him to work part time so he could spend more time with his children that triggered the end of his career in local government.
Outside work, Ryan had been pursuing his interest in becoming a children’s story teller in schools. To boost his skills, he enrolled on a writing course, but when a college administrator phoned him at home to say it had been timetabled at a different time, his wife, who took the call, said he would do the comedy course instead.
By 2001, he was sharing the runner-up prize at Leicester Comedy Festival’s talent competition with a certain Jimmy Carr.
Fatherhood
Ryan agrees that fatherhood can feel lonely and knows what it’s like to feel sometimes like a ‘second class’ parent. He recalls being, on occasion, the only father at his children’s toddler group.
He says that this seemed to make him immensely attractive to the mothers there, but concedes that this is probably not the story’s most appropriate discussion point.
Ryan’s enthusiasm for doing work which is away from what he describes as the ‘overwhelmingly white, middle class Comedy Club circuit’ is palpably genuine.
His experience tells him that comedy is an ideal vehicle for connecting to hard-to-reach groups: ‘If you can make them laugh you can make them listen. It’s about breaking down barriers.’
Hurt Until it Laughs
Those YoungMinds' is not Ryan’s first involvement in ‘serious’ comedy. In 2004, he fronted ‘Hurt Until It Laughs’, another ground-breaking project using humour to persuade men in areas of high social deprivation to seek health advice from GPs rather than leaving - sometimes dangerous - symptoms unchecked.
Ryan says his involvement with projects like ‘Those YoungMinds’ benefits him as well as the target audience and has enhanced his skills as a performer. ‘Hurt Until It Laughs’ allowed him to try out serious material and built his confidence in developing the darker side of his performance. The project taught him to engage better with audiences after building trust through use of the ‘funny’ material.
The premier of ‘Those YoungMinds’ takes place at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, on 13 February as part of the 15th anniversary celebrations of Leicester Comedy Festival. www.comedy-festival.co.uk
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There will be a London showing on Tuesday 10th and 17th June at 8pm in the Soho Theatre (21 Dean Street, London W1). See the Soho theatre website for more details and to book your place!
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Article adapted from YoungMinds Magazine - the Magazine for everyone concerned with child and adolescent mental health. Subscribe today to receive thirty five pages of the latest news, comment, views, analysis and good
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