My upcoming Edinburgh Fringe show

STAMMAFest 2026

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Tuesday 14th July 2026

Arts

A man wearing sunglasses and a cap, looking to the right, at a poster featuring a man with his head in his hands. Above is the title 'Your Therapist is Clueless'

Nathaniel and the poster for his show

Nathaniel Tresise, who'll be performing his comedy show Your Therapist Is Clueless at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August, tells us what it's like to be on stage with a stammer.

The house lights go down and the spotlight comes up as I take centre stage. I can feel my heartbeat reverberate around my whole body as I try to pick out a face or two in the audience I can really focus my speech towards. I'm not concerned about the regular stage blunders and I'm in nicely fitting shoes, so I won't fall over. I know my lines and I'm fairly sure my fly is done up and my belt's secure, so my trousers won't fall down. What's gnawing away at the back of my mind, though, is will I get through my first sentence alright?

This August at the Edinburgh Fringe, that's exactly what will be going through my mind at the start of my comedy show about my very personal experiences of working on the front line of crisis mental health. That and, I suppose, will enough blood stay in my head for the next 45 minutes?

My character is more short-tempered, sarcastic, possibly even arrogant and definitely sick of being told to watch The King's Speech.

Quite simply I stammer. Have done since I was eight years old, which means I have the increasingly surreal perspective of being able to recall a time that I didn't. What also seems very surreal looking back from the year 2026 is that no adult spoke to me about it or even acknowledged the change I was going through. I hope this is different today!

Back to me on stage though, and it's all going rather well as I haven't come across any kind of hard syllables that may leave my mouth trailing in my mind's wake. But then it does help that I've written the thing.

A man standing on a stage and performing

Nathaniel on stage

Oh no, code red. I really shouldn't have used the word 'ethnicity' — that was tremendously ambitious of me. I can feel the audience almost clench as one as my face begins to distort when I stammer. They don't know me, they don't know this is totally normal. They think I'm falling apart with nerves or anxiety and have forgotten part of the script.

Luckily, at about five minutes in I reveal to my audience — I hope in a fairly light-hearted and comedic way — that I stammer. In the same way I felt them clench and twitch earlier, I now feel them grow out of their seats and realise it was all part of the plan. They even laugh at my pithy one-liners about having a stammer which are clearly autobiographical and is me saying "it's fine, now let's enjoy the show". To be honest, I might reflect on this 10-minute interjection as being possibly one of the best parts of the show.

My show

I had no stage or performing experience prior to the last twelve months, when I started writing my own script and performing a one-man show. It's supposed to be a dry drama/comedy, but I don't really mind how people categorise it as I hope it can be enjoyed differently depending on your perspective.

The world can bloody well wait for me to finish speaking!

It's just me and the audience for 45 minutes as I play out a not-so-typical day in the life of a mental health professional. In the end, my stammer has very little to do with it and that's the point. Yes, I acknowledge it, but I don't define my character by it like many other stammering parts on stage and screen. I deliberately tried to avoid the stereotypical characters such as Thunderbirds's Brains or more recently Brassic's Cardi. You know, the nervous introvert that everyone loves. My character is more short-tempered, sarcastic, possibly even arrogant and definitely sick of being told to watch The King's Speech (spoiler).

It isn't for me to tell other fellow stammerers how to live their lives, but through doing this show I've become completely convinced that the world of stage and microphones should be for us as well. The world can bloody well wait for me to finish speaking!

Finally, I was asked recently if there was anything about me that I would change. I didn't even think to offer up my stammer to this theoretical question. It's who I am and I may be a different person without it. I mean, without it what would my answer be to those annoying ice-breaker questions when you have to tell the group an interesting fact about yourself?

Nathaniel Tresise will be performing Your Therapist Is Clueless at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on 7^th-15^th August at Greenside @ Riddle's Court. You can buy tickets from the Edinburgh Fringe website.

Follow Nathaniel on Instagram: @your_therapist_is_clueless

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