'Boarding school is a breeding ground for comedy – but something darker too', writes Tom Greaves

This has been done before of course, and by comedians who all attended boarding school. You can see its imprint in Monty Python (most of the cast went); the offbeat parody Tomkinson’s Schooldays in the Ripping Yarns series; Rowan Atkinson’s Schoolmaster character (a sketch at the Fringe that rocketed him to fame); Peter Cook’s surreal, dark satire; and the cruel, comic characters from Roald Dahl’s books.

I’m adding another character to the canon this year at the Edinburgh Fringe - a toxic ex-public schoolboy called ‘Fudgey’, who has a midlife crisis brought on by boarding school trauma. I’ve spent the past few years investigating how boarding school impacted me (as a result of my own crisis), ending up in therapy groups designed specifically for this purpose. ‘Fudgey’ emerged from this healing journey as a kind of satirical caricature; an allegory through which to process all this. He could easily be portrayed by any of the above alumni, who would not only share a natural understanding of the character but also, I think, the inclination to play him.

I can probably pinpoint my first use of humour as a way to protect and conceal the vulnerable seven-year-old boy in me, desperately trying to survive at boarding school. In that environment, if you could outwit your peers then you’d avoid being the butt of the joke. So if you had the skills for it, being a bully was a sensible lifestyle choice.

If not, you could take another route and become aloof and/or bookish, or you’d have to settle with being crushed. These masks get cemented at boarding school because you can never leave. You can’t go home and decompress. It’s 24/7 batch-living: dorm, dining hall, classroom, even the showers are communal. The only time alone to escape is on the loo.

The ridiculous rules, the incessant timetabling where school becomes your whole life, and the lack of parenting, also forged an anarchic spirit in me (which I now see as a natural human need to undermine this mad institution.) I mean when you find yourself, at the age of 12, regularly invited down to the headmaster’s study to get drunk, then led out of the school grounds at midnight to fire air rifles, slash tyres, graffiti the local town, and then come back and watch cartoon porn together… it certainly sets the tone.

I did my best to be creative with my ‘up yours’ to the establishment. Dressing up as a human poppy for Remembrance Sunday and another time whilst tasked with leading morning chapel service, with the entire school kneeling, reciting pages and pages of prayers: for our teachers to be forgiven and for sporting heroes such as Vic Owen, the international conker champion. I successfully delayed classes for 15 minutes that day.

But even though it was a f*** you, it still wasn’t authentic. They say you can go one of three ways: comply, rebel, or get crushed. I was in the second camp. It’s led to a fair bit of self-sabotaging but I think it’s what gave me the audacity to become an actor. And the nerve to question my education, which cost thousands and thousands of pounds and was surely for the best.

At school, I also had a talent for pretending I wasn’t upset, or angry, or even happy. Any show of emotion would leave you exposed. Nick Duffell, a leading therapist in this area, says that people who’ve been to boarding school make good actors and good spies because they’re expertly trained in hiding their true self. And I agree, I think my skills as a performer were formed just from being in that environment. I also clearly put in a flawless, non-stop performance for, as far as my parents, peers and teachers were concerned, boarding school was working well for me and I loved it. I even convinced myself.

My first memory of being funny was in the school play, aged 11, playing Toad in Toad Of Toad Hall. I remember finding this freedom playing that role and deciding there and then that I was going to be an actor. That hit of validation with all the parents, teachers, and students watching me and laughing with me; I felt free and seen and heard.

Ideally, this is something every child feels simply by virtue of being alive. But hey, I’d found a great way to get the love and attention I needed. And I told Helen Biles, who I used to do Jim Carrey impressions to in choir practice, that I’d be a Hollywood movie star one day. It hasn’t quite happened like that. Ed Fringe ‘24 here we go!

There’s a tendency with ex-boarders to vaunt having gone through this dark time. It’s in the wry, tolerant, and proud way we talk about it. A bit like gallows humour in the military. Wearing it as a badge of honour. Stand-ups Ivo Graham and Jack Whitehall joke about it and, although self-aware, I imagine these jokes mask a sadness that comes from pain. I know this first hand. In the group therapy I took part in, I found myself triggered by a bit of harmless banter among the men. The leading therapist stepped in, began working with me and, standing in for my parents, apologised. After first boiling with rage, I then broke down in tears as he held me and tenderly stroked the back of my head, witnessed by the other guys.

The line between pathos and humour is thinner than we think. And this is what I try to navigate in my show Fudgey, and why the comedy gradually dissolves into tragedy. Richard Gadd explored this in his award-winning show Monkey See Monkey Do and Trevor Griffiths in his play The Comedians. Sometimes it’s not enough just to be funny. I mean my father brought me up on Monty Python, Ripping Yarns, Peter Cook and Roald Dahl and yet he still sent me to boarding school. This is why the message in my show has to be stronger.

In those crucial years, we were just children in need of love. This neglect leaves a dangerous, devastating hole. Friends have taken their own life and I know plenty of “happily married men” who perhaps aren’t as happy as they seem. Give these people access to the highest positions of power in the country and we start to see something all too familiar. So yes, boarding school is a breeding ground for comedy, but also something much darker too.

Tom Greaves: Fudgey plays at Assembly Roxy at 5.55pm, until 26 August.