Gwen Coburn's "dark feminist" comedy is her calling card. When she began doing her half hour One Sad Girl, a sharp and self-deprecating standup set, it was a hit. What she didn't realise was that her punchlines weren't just edgy; they were a cry for help. The crushing pain and intrusive thoughts she'd been medicating with constant gigging weren't depression, as she'd been told by doctors. They were symptoms of PTSD from a relationship with an improv teacher that had left her questioning her own reality.
Patriarchy is a tea we've all been steeped in
"I was doing show after show," Coburn reflects ahead of her Edinburgh Fringe debut with Sad Girl Songs. "But really, I was using stage time to get brief reprieves from a pain I couldn't understand. Comedy became my armour, but inside that armour I was suffocating."
PTSD, particularly from intimate partner abuse involving psychological manipulation, is frequently misdiagnosed as anxiety or depression. "I spent years in therapy talking about my 'sadness'," she says. "No one asked about the nightmares, the hypervigilance, the way I'd freeze up in certain situations."
The breakthrough came when her body was insisting on lying down. "I cried in the car on the way to and from every show, I froze up during rehearsals, but I kept pushing and telling myself I needed to suck it up. That was when my body said, 'you know what? Let's be horizontal for a bit,' and suddenly it was a challenge to be upright." She met with a psychiatrist, and after answering her many questions - from her position collapsed on the couch - the doctor immediately said, "This is PTSD".
Getting that diagnosis was the turning point. It was devastating, because it meant confronting what had really happened with her improv teacher - the gaslighting, the boundary violations, the misuse of power. But it was also liberating, giving her a framework to understand her own survival mechanisms.
In writing Sad Girl Songs, Coburn has crafted something more complex: an exploration of how women are conditioned to blame themselves for their own victimisation.
"I kept thinking, 'why didn't I recognise my own distress?'" she explains. "Then I started looking at the myths we tell about women like Medusa and Europa. How we teach girls to modify their behaviour rather than expect safety. I thought about all the times I felt uncomfortable or unsafe but the social cues told me that I should be cool about it."
As Coburn puts it, "Patriarchy is a tea we've all been steeped in, we have to realise we're all getting burned." It's comedy born from rage, but also from hope - a deliberate choice to transform pain into connection rather than isolation.
The toughest part of Coburn's journey has been what came after speaking out. When she reported her experiences, she found herself facing what she calls "functional exile" from parts of the comedy community.
"I really thought that if I spoke up about the harm that occurred and asked for the help I needed - in my case it was clear structure in place to assure separation between myself and the instructor I was reporting - that would be enough. But creating a safer space is complex and, ultimately, it's less work to simply let things return to status quo, even if that means you lose the people who have reported harm." As she says in the show, comedy is a tough gig for gorgons.
Sad Girl Songs is intentional in its focus on healing and community-building. "This show is about finding each other in the darkness," Coburn explains, "because stories like mine are everywhere."
The songs, with titles like Thank You For Not Murdering Me, are a way of reclaiming narrative control over experiences that once left her feeling powerless. "I thought a lot about making a show that reaches towards my audience instead of pushing them away. Every joke I tell now is a choice," she says, "not an escape route."
Looking ahead to Edinburgh, Coburn hopes her show will spark conversations about creating safer creative spaces and recognising the intricacy of power dynamics. "Maybe someone will see this and realise they're not alone," she reflects. "Or maybe someone will think twice before crossing a line with a student or colleague. Either way, that's progress.”
For more about Gwen Coburn see: gwencoburn.com
