Alex Berr on bringing her trauma to the Fringe

I entered university bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Like a Lin-Manuel Miranda character, I was not throwing away… my… shot.

I was set to study biomedical engineering, and I couldn’t wait to get in the lab and start hurtling towards my self-assigned destiny of curing cancer. I joined a lab researching an incredibly rare but deadly form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. As my new boss explained, ‘almost no one survives a year following diagnosis and most die within a year.’ A challenge fit for an 18-year-old!

I worked nights and weekends, toiling away at our research question: how do differences in the tumour microenvironment predict response to therapy? I learned how to culture cells from patients, treat them with different drugs, and analyse the results. This research propelled me into a PhD programme, where I continued to study cancer. Nothing could stop me; I was destined to fulfil my lifelong dream of finding A Cure.

Three years into my PhD, I was sitting at my lab bench, doing unspeakable things to a mouse cadaver, when I received a call from my mom. 

‘Something’s not right; I’m going to the emergency room.’

A few weeks went by as my mom went through scans and tests. I awaited her calls with bated breath until finally, the diagnosis came back: glioblastoma. 

The coincidence was too incredible – I knew so much about this disease, but it wasn’t until my mom’s diagnosis that I really felt the weight of it. It’s the kind of coincidence that propels people into quitting their job or writing a solo show, or in my case, both.

In the year between my mom’s diagnosis and death, she began to encourage my sisters and I to use her illness as an excuse to get out of day-to-day tasks. 

‘Don’t want to go to school? Tell them your mom is dying.’

‘Nervous to break up with your boyfriend? Say you want to spend more time with your terminal mom.’

‘Speeding ticket? Let the cops know you were racing home to spend your precious remaining moments with your favourite parent.’

Over the rest of my PhD I became disillusioned with the promise of my labwork. While I still believe in the value of scientific research, my pessimism became so intense that I couldn’t bring myself to keep doing it. I know that we need continued cancer research, because it will eventually lead to earlier detection, better targeted therapy, and more effective drugs, but all of that felt so far away and so out of my control. 

To me, it wasn’t worth the time, or the animal lives lost, while people like my mom continued to suffer.  So I did what any person with a skillset limited to the killing of small animals would do – I turned to stand-up comedy.

There’s a hack premise that comedians use stand-up as a substitute for therapy. Despite my judgement of peers who refuse to go to therapy in favour of open mics, I think there is something to be said about reflecting on dark moments through humour. My mom was able to joke about her illness with a light-heartedness that put her friends and family at ease. I am merely continuing in the tradition.

Now, I am joining the swarm of comedians bringing their trauma to the Fringe under the thinly veiled guise of a solo comedy show. If I must be earnest, I think this show will resonate with lapsed academics, 30-somethings in the throes of burnout, and anyone who’s ever experienced the excruciating loss of control following a terminal diagnosis – because laughing together is so much better than crying alone.

And if all else fails, I’ll tap into my mom’s recommended strategy: ‘Trouble selling tickets to your solo show? Tell them it was your mom’s dying wish.’

• Alex Berr: How to Kill a Mouse is on at Just The Tonic at the Mash House at 12.35pm during the Edinburgh Fringe.

Published: 30 Jul 2025