How neurodiversity took over the Edinburgh Fringe

At this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, the new thing, the hot ticket, is being neurodiverse. Across comedy, stand up, magic and the spoken word it’s not so much Lady Macbeth as My Mental Health.

Standing out in the chaos of the 3,000 plus shows of Edinburgh Fringe by being ‘different’ has always been the number one prerequisite for gathering any kind of audience. And this year it seems like show after show is doing that by focusing on the psychological compulsions of the performers themselves.

‘Lady ADHD’, ‘Hyperactivity Disorder’, ‘Naughty or Neurodiverse: Magic from another planet’, ‘Baby Belle: Young, Dumb and full of Autism’, ‘River Time’, and ‘Unstuck’ are just some of the smorgasbord of shows transmuting psychiatric conditions into supposed public entertainment.

According to Blaire Postman, or Lady ADHD, ‘I just want to tell the world that ADHD folks have a lot to offer – some of those skills really do change the world – so we have to stop trying to put ADHD into a box’.