Comedian Harriet Dyer: 'I only found out I couldn't hear when the Covid pandemic hit'
Comedian Harriet Dyer didn’t realise she was hard of hearing until the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Everyone began wearing face masks and lipreading was impossible.
"I did used to find it quite difficult whenever I was in the back seat of the car and I just never knew what anyone was saying so I always felt like a bit left out,” she muses. “And my mum for some reason would always have subtitles on the TV, I think because there's always stuff going on in the house, so (it meant) we could focus (on the TV). There were all these things that I couldn't hear but I didn't really realise.
"Then during lockdown, people were getting annoyed with me in the supermarket and stuff because I couldn’t tell what they were saying and I realised oh it's the people that are wearing masks. I thought it might be like a a neurodiverse thing – a lot of people say that with ADHD you need to look at people's mouths or whatever. But yeah, I just didn't have a clue what anyone was saying.”
Dyer booked to have her ears tested – and it was then she discovered she was hard of hearing. She shared the story during a recent appearance on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.
Dyer has been a full time comic since 2013 and sticks by the mantra “it’s important to find the funny in otherwise bleak times”. "I didn't really watch a lot of comedy growing up,” she admits. “Not ever proper stand comedy. I never ever would have thought it would exist as a job or a career, especially because because in those days it was mainly men that did it.”
A bipolar mental health advocate, she is the founder of Manchester's monthly Barking Tales comedy night, where she and fellow comedians often perform routines about their struggles with mental health. She has also written a book about her experience 'Bipolar Comedian’ a "funnier than it should be, honest tale of a bipolar, working-class girl from Cornwall who overcame an awful lot of trauma".
Dyer was a writer for both seasons of Jon Richardson’s Channel Hopping on Channel 4, and she wrote for and starred in Meet the Richardsons on Dave, as well as having numerous TV credits to her name. She’s had numerous critically acclaimed shows, previously winning the Neurodivergent Representation Award at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe, and has gigged all over the country, and now she’s heading out on her first ‘proper’ tour.
Easily Distra… is a new blancmange of whimsy from her somewhat fizzy mind, featuring topics such as wearing a wetsuit on a bus, jaunty social commentary on why couples don’t talk to each other anymore, and trying to get a cow to lick the top of your head.
"People can expect chaos, a chaotic fun time, with loads of daft stories with surreal twists,” she says. "The world's very serious and I would just like people to be sort of swept up in my whirlwind of joy.”
Dyer is at The Leadmill, Sheffield on October 21 and The Old Woollen, Leeds on October 23. For tickets, visit harrietdyer.com