Review of the comic's new stand-up tour

For her fifth solo show, Catherine Bohart has returned to a topic she addressed in her first – her OCD – though in retrospect, she feels that she was too new a comic back in 2018 to do the subject justice.

There are no such issues now, however, as the garrulous Irishwoman is an incredibly assured comic force, smashing through every aspect of her life with a fierce, self-aware wit.

Bohart admits she has no command of the segue, but there is a through-line here – that she had always pegged happiness to home-ownership, an unlikely embrace of one particular aspect of Thatcherism. If only she could have her own place, she believed she’d be a proper adult, rooted and content away from the triggering presence of messy housemates. The good news is that she now, at 37, owns a place with her girlfriend. It’s no spoiler to say, however, that her mind is still not settled. 

Any themes of this show are, however, less important than the hilarious and intense download of all that's going on in her life. Her propensity for oversharing is well established, as she knows no other way. Indeed, after the briefest of introductions, she tells us that she has an ‘uptight pelvis’, a medical diagnosis at the heart of an hysterically humiliating routine which breaks the ice perfectly.

So strong is her compulsion to tell strangers all her secrets, she has to reassure the audience up top that: ‘I’m grand,’ before running through a litany of things that might suggest she isn’t. However, her hyper-self-awareness, keen empathy and faultless good humour in discussing her issues are positive signs. 

The show’s title comes from one of her father’s sayings, warning against expending energy on hypothetical future catastrophes that will ruin your enjoyment of the present. The irony of this coming from a Catholic deacon – whose whole deal is worrying about a future afterlife – is certainly not lost.

Both her parents make frequent appearances, mum being comically overfretful and dad intensely hyperactive – as revealed in an anecdote so outlandish no one would have dared to make it up. In a phrase so pithy and accurate that it ought to be printed on merch, Bohart perceptively notes: ‘Dads don’t have mental health crises, they have "their own way of doing things".’ Blessed are the phrase-makers as eloquent as this.

The story, and her incredulous reaction, is very much in keeping with the comic’s vibe of ‘what the hell is wrong with people?’ – while being acutely aware of what’s wrong with herself.

She doesn’t trust her meds, nor therapy, thinks – with evidence – that lesbian weddings are shameless cash grabs and knows that hearing about other people’s mental health is boring. With a similar hypocrisy (which she merrily embraces), she loves dogs, but hates dog people.

Bohart’s combination of control-freakery and bullshit intolerance means she reacts with amusingly amplified passive-aggression to disruptions in the room, charm slapped over the wry pique of someone who can’t bear anything to derail her position as being ‘in control of the fun’. She plays her material with a similarly disarming lightness of touch, concealing big themes behind fast-talking gossip.

Her confession that having neurodiversity makes her difficult to date proves a touching tribute to the patience of her partner, without ever straying too far from another devastating punchline. She exhibits far more empathy than she gives her OCD credit for – and when that humanity is combined with her perceptive overview and innate wit, the result is intoxicating.

• Catherine Bohart: Borrowing Trouble is at Soho Theatre until October 3 and then on tour around the UK and Ireland until November 26. Catherine ​Bohart tour dates.

Review date: 23 Sep 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Soho Theatre