How I Became Jimmy Krankie
I'll say one thing for this job of mine, it's full of variety. This afternoon, for example, I was asked to assume the role of Jimmy Krankie and display my limited acting skills in front of a group of people interested in mental health. Not my mental health, but just mental health generally.
This was during a comedy workshop were were staging at Pacific Quay as part of the Producer Margaret-Anne Docherty and comedian Raymond Mearns were performing extracts from the Â鶹Éç Radio Scotland comedy No Hard Feelings. The central character - Raymond Swann - has to cope with depression and anxiety after the death of his mother. We wanted to explore whether or not this subject matter was suitable for comedy and what changes we should make in advance of the next series.
The audience included people who had either experienced mental health problems themselves or else were involved in the professional side. We heard some interesting and valuable points of view and I was particularly struck by those who suggested that a comedy could also have an educative role and could help explode some of the myths surrounding therapy and psychiatric care. Others took us to task for not understanding that, in reality, psycho-therapists say very little during a session...although it was accepted that might not make for very interesting radio.
In one of the extracts, Raymond Swann hallucinates a clone of himself as a minature Jimmy Krankie. That was my chance to play a bit part in the performance.
I wont tell you what the audience thought of that, but "fan-dabi-dozi" would be inaccurate...and far too obvious.
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