For a comedian, gig work is fairly literal. The audience sees the minutes on stage but built around that performance is hours of writing, travelling, agonising, chasing bookings and, at least for most non-superstar comedians, working out the cost of performing. Applause and laughter is amazing, but it remains surprisingly difficult to use at the supermarket.
As both a suicidologist and a stand-up comedian, I am fascinated by how these working lives shape mental health. For me, comedy offers purpose, friendship and the satisfaction of making something that matters to other people. I love it, and I love making people laugh. But it can also involve significant financial uncertainty, intercommunity politics, and constant judgement. Comedians often present their own experiences as the jumping off point for their comedy to make it relatable, but these depictions are hardly reality. The truth behind simply being a comedian is as likely to be one of constant competition, self-doubt, and personal expense; as much as it can be laughter, excitement, and praise.
Understanding how those experiences fit together is the starting point for Dying Laughing – a research project focused on the impact upon individual’s mental health of being a gig-economy comedian.
Comedy, as a career, is not alone in it’s fragility because it belongs to a wider world of freelance and insecure work. Its arrangements differ from app-based delivery or driving, so findings cannot simply be transferred between them. What connects these settings is a question about the conditions under which people work, and what happens when earning a living becomes difficult to predict.
The health cost of uncertainty
Insecurity can make ordinary decisions difficult. Can I afford to turn down this job? What happens if I become unwell? Can I plan next month when I do not know what I will earn next week? Flexibility has value, but its usefulness depends partly on how much choice and financial security a person actually has. From personal experience, as an academic when I have severe mental health issues or a migraine I am able to take sick leave or move my work day around. As a comedian I have no such opportunity. Almost all my performances are unpaid, yet should bow out of a gig, particularly at short notice, the impact could be significantly more severe as I may not be able to be booked again. Arguably, a comedian without audience is not a comedian – they are a writer with a flair for humour. In gig economy jobs, often missed work opportunities can mean less opportunities in the long run.
Research supports taking these pressures seriously. A 2019 systematic review of longitudinal studies found that job insecurity was associated with poorer mental health. The evidence was less certain for temporary contracts or unpredictable working hours considered separately. That distinction matters: different forms of insecure work do not necessarily have identical effects. [1] A UK study published in 2022 found that gig workers reported poorer mental health and life satisfaction than people in conventional full-time or part-time employment, although better outcomes than people who were unemployed. Loneliness and financial insecurity were associated with these differences. The study captured a single snapshot during the pandemic, so it cannot establish that gig work caused poorer mental health. [2]
The evidence on suicide needs separate attention. A 2026 review of longitudinal studies found associations between job loss, job insecurity and suicide deaths. The authors rated the evidence as moderate certainty for job loss and low certainty for job insecurity. These findings warrant concern, but they do not establish a suicide rate for gig workers or prove that insecure work causes suicide. Neither can evidence about mental distress be treated as evidence about suicide deaths. [3]
How good work can help
Work can also support mental health. A reliable income can ease financial pressure, while meaningful activity and supportive relationships can provide structure, confidence and a sense of belonging. The World Health Organization identifies these as benefits of decent work, including for people living with mental health conditions. [4] The quality of that work matters. In an Australian longitudinal study, moving from unemployment into a good-quality job was associated with improved mental health. Moving into a job marked by problems such as insecurity and low control was associated with worse mental health than remaining unemployed. Employment status alone tells us too little about whether work is helping someone. [5]
For me, the implication for suicide prevention is that working conditions deserve attention alongside access to support. Fair treatment, a dependable income and having someone to turn to are conditions worth building into working life. The evidence does not justify promising that any particular workplace initiative will prevent suicide deaths, but it gives us good reasons to examine how work creates or reduces strain. For freelance workers, that raises practical questions.
Who notices when someone is struggling? Where can they seek help without worrying about future bookings? Who takes responsibility when there is no single employer?
A wellbeing message has limited value if the arrangements around it make asking for help difficult.
Comedy as a case study
Comedy makes some of these tensions particularly visible. A performer can love the work while finding its financial arrangements exhausting. They can feel part of a community while worrying about their place within it. When material draws on personal experience, feedback on a performance may also feel unusually close to feedback on the person.
There is research on the work behind this. An interview study of stand-up comedians described how performers managed their emotions to maintain relationships with promoters, including presenting themselves positively while suppressing anxiety or frustration about insecure or inadequate pay. The emotional demands extended beyond entertaining the audience into the relationships through which work was obtained. [6]
There are also positive experiences to understand. What does it mean to find people who share your sense of humour, develop confidence on stage or turn a difficult experience into something an audience recognises? When does humour make a conversation possible, and when might it help someone avoid saying how they really feel? These are questions for research, not reasons to assume that comedy is either harmful or therapeutic.
The familiar image of the troubled comedian cannot answer them. Nor can individual stories establish that comedians experience higher suicide rates than other workers. We need to listen carefully to people working across the circuit and understand the circumstances around their experiences.
Introducing Dying Laughing
Dying Laughing is a developing project exploring comedy as precarious creative work, with a proposed study across Glasgow and Sunderland. We want to understand how comedians experience the relationship between work, identity and mental health, and how local venues, opportunities and relationships shape distress, support and coping.
The proposed research would combine in-depth interviews with ethnography: spending time in comedy settings to understand everyday working practices and relationships. My own experience as a performer would form a reflective strand, examined alongside other accounts. Comparing two local scenes would help us explore how place and access to opportunities influence those experiences.
We also want to understand what comedians do with comedy itself, including how humour and performance might help them make sense of difficult experiences. Suicidal distress would remain within the research where it arises, while the wider focus would be on working lives, mental health and the conditions that shape them.
Alongside the research ambitions, the Dying Laughing podcast is intended to open up public conversations about comedy and mental health. We want comedians to help shape the questions and any future support that emerges. That could involve peer support, changes to working practices or something we have not yet considered. Listening should come before deciding what the answer looks like.
Making people laugh is work worth taking seriously. Dying Laughing starts with curiosity about the people doing it, the communities around them and what would help them build a sustainable life in comedy.
If this article raises something you would like to talk about, Samaritans is available free on 116 123, day or night, across the UK and Ireland. [7]
Sources
[1] Rönnblad T and colleagues (2019). Precarious employment and mental health: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 45(5), 429–443. Read source
[2] National survey of mental health and life satisfaction of gig workers: the role of loneliness and financial precarity (2022). BMJ Open, 12, e066389. Read source
[3] Magnusson Hanson LL and colleagues (2026). Employment and working conditions and risk of suicidal behaviors: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 52(5), 486–501. Read source
[3a] Correction to reference 3, published 22 September 2026. Read source
[4] World Health Organization (2026). Mental health at work. Updated 15 September 2026. Read source
[5] Butterworth P and colleagues (2011). The psychosocial quality of work determines whether employment has benefits for mental health: results from a longitudinal national household panel survey. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 68(11), 806–812. Read source
[6] Butler N and Stoyanova Russell D (2018). No funny business: Precarious work and emotional labour in stand-up comedy. Human Relations, 71(12), 1666–1686. Read source
[7] Samaritans. Contact a Samaritan. Read source
Leave a comment