My response to Kiwi psychiatrist Dr Jo Prendergast’s show CANCER AND CARTWHEELS is a personal one. Like with Jo, cancer has played a part in my life. With Jo it was breast cancer, first diagnosed in 2021. For me it was lung cancer, diagnosed in 2013. Whilst my coping with cancer has been low key, Jo has been very much on the front foot from the very outset. She tells us how she ‘skated down’ the hall of her hospital ward shortly after being taken to her bed after coming back from recovery! After my surgery I was busy pressing the pain trigger!
Dr Jo performed with the aid of multi-media, using her romote control. easily accessed through her bum bag, to projecr pics from her life on to a screen behind her.
Her show sweeps over her journey from her hospital bed to the present day where she tells us she recently had a MRI scan which came back cancer free.
Jo has packed a lot in to her journey post diagnosis; she still works as a practicing psychiatrist, has put together a website on managing chemotherapy side-effects, made a semi-viral Tik Tok video, come up with her second stand-up comedy show which we were the guests to, and has just published a new book, When Life Sucks, published hy Harper Collins, a guide for parents in trying to help their children to that angst ridden developmental period, adolescence.
What comes across clearly in her show is that Jo has no interest in being a victim but even more so that it is her ability to take a humorous perspective on very dark aspects of the human experience. It is far from an easy thing to do, still she manages to pull it off with style.
There is a simple explanation for the reference to cartwheels in the show’s title. Near the start of the show Jo tells us that one of her favourite memories of childhood is doing cartwheels at the beach which she found very easy to do, and gave her so much joy. She showed us pictures of her performing perfect cartwheels.
With all the often harsh medical treatment that she has had to undergo since 2021 it had often plauged her, in the back of her mind, that she would no longer be able to perform cartwheels. In one of the shows most poignant moments, she shows us a recent picture of her successfully performing a complete cartwheel. She is one resolute woman.
The show, Dr Jo Prendergast : Cancer and Cartwheels, played as part of this year’s Sydney Comedy Festival, for one night only on Saturday 26th April at the Fusebox Factory Theatre.
Jo announced at the show that she is taking CANCER AND CARTWHEELS on tour. No rest for this comic!
