As comedian Jake Lambert admits, there could be few more aptly named places to have had his first seizure.
“I was in a fitting room,” laughs Jake, 33, who has built a name for himself on the comedy circuit by focusing on his epilepsy, which first revealed itself as he was trying on jeans in Topshop.
It’s not a condition that Jake – who regularly supports big acts including Michael McIntyre and Jack Dee, and has written for hit TV shows including Mock The Week and 8 Out Of 10 Cats – is shy to open up about. But he is aware his audiences sit up and listen with a different kind of attentiveness when he uses the material he has written about his seizures.
“Epilepsy isn’t funny at all,” stresses Jake of the neurological condition which affects an estimated 633,000 people in the UK. “I would hate anyone in the audience with the condition to think that I was mocking or laughing at them.
“I only ever laugh about my own epilepsy and the way I have dealt with it or failed to deal with it. I own my epilepsy, so I think it gives me a right to talk about it in a way that someone who hasn’t had seizures would not be able to.
“The moment I mention this huge, heavy subject, I can see the mood in the audience change and then change again with a sort of relief when they hear me joking.
“But I would like to think it helps to normalise the condition for other people and increases awareness of what it is like to have seizures. It makes the whole thing feel far less scary.”
Despite capitalising on living with the condition, Jake would never want to be labelled an epileptic comedian.
“I say I have epilepsy, not that I am epileptic – it’s something I have, not something I am. When people ask the difference I explain that I have a Ford Focus but I’m not a Ford Focus.”
Jake was diagnosed in his first year at Kingston University, but it was an illness he knew plenty about. Around one in three people with epilepsy have a family member with it, and this was the case for Jake.
“My older sister Claire has epilepsy,” he explains. “Though I had never seen her have a seizure, I was always aware of the times growing up when my dad had to kick down the bathroom door when we heard her having a seizure in the shower.
“My parents would put Claire to bed, check she could recognise them and knew what day of the week it was.”
When 19-year-old Jake had his first seizure, he didn’t tell his parents, fearing they would travel to his uni halls and take him back to the family home in Slough.
The doctor said the seizures were triggered by lack of sleep, stress and alcohol – “three things that could really be used to sum up the uni experience,” says Jake.
“I tried to make sure I was safe by putting pillows around my desk and a duvet on the floor if I thought I might have a seizure. To be honest, I was young and a bit silly. I thought I was untouchable and put my own health second to having a good time.
“Once the medicines had sorted the seizures out, I sent my parents a text to say what had happened and that I was fine and they were OK about it. I think they thought I was being more sensible than I actually was.
“My friends were also supportive. They called me ‘Shakey Jake’, so I finally had a nickname,” he jokes.
Jake also experienced something called Alice in Wonderland syndrome, where his perspective on his surroundings kept changing.
“I would be lying in bed and everything would either seem very big and really close, or very small and far away,” he explains. “The bedroom door would suddenly feel as though it was an inch from my face and closing in on me. Then the perspective would change.
“Other times I would be able to just gather myself together until things felt normal again.” Jake’s recent show Liminal busted common epilepsy myths, while a sitcom he has written about his experiences has just been picked up by a production company.
“I am a bit worried about whether people will be happy to see epilepsy represented in a light-hearted way, but I will be consulting with other people with epilepsy to make sure I get it right,” he says. “When I first started out in comedy, I wouldn’t have had the tools to talk about my epilepsy in the way I do now. I couldn’t have made it funny. Now, it is almost a way of saying to my epilepsy that I am in control, it hasn’t got me. It’s probably a very British way of dealing with it.
“My family is the same. My sister and nephew both have epilepsy but we all get on with our lives.”
* If you would like to talk to someone about epilepsy, call the Epilepsy Society helpline on 01494 601400 or visit epilepsysociety.org.uk
