Laughter is the Best Medicine
Coping with life’s biggest challenges
How do you cope when life throws you curveballs?
In 2021, psychiatrist Dr Jo Prendergast was diagnosed with breast cancer. She wrote most of this keynote during treatment, because finding the humour in the experience was one of the main things that got her through.
Laughter is the Best Medicine is a comedy keynote about coping with life’s biggest challenges. It explores what serious illness looks like from inside a doctor’s life, why ‘brave warrior’ expectations and toxic positivity make hard things harder, and what actually helps when someone around us is going through tough stuff. Drawing on more than 30 years of psychiatric practice and her own time as the patient, Dr Jo turns one of life’s least funny subjects into an hour that is genuinely funny, deeply human and quietly practical, with coping lessons that carry into both our personal lives and the workplace.
Closing keynotes, conference dinners, gala functions, awards nights, wellbeing days, health sector events, or a mid-programme lift. Any moment where the booker wants the audience entertained and moved, leaving with something genuinely useful.
A cracker of a show with an important message.
Hilarious and heartwarming. A must-see, unforgettable performance.
Brings the house down with fits of laughter. The audience absolutely loved the experience.
