Some people say performing stand-up comedy is like therapy. Catherine Bohart’s latest show discusses how some forms of therapy, like knockoff app-based ones, and stand-up comedy, don’t work as well as we’d like. In fact, they may sometimes do the opposite.
Borrowing Trouble updates us on some topics from her previous shows – Bohart’s very first stand-up hour discussed recovery from OCD with what she now describes as naivety, as she’s grown older and learned that recovery isn’t linear. Her more recent stand-up discussed the stresses of living with young and messy housemates, while her newest hour discusses how mental illness can render any living situation stressful, even with housemates gone.
This is the first time that Bohart has discussed the details of her OCD on stage since her debut hour from 2018, and like in that debut hour, she reflects on it in the context of her religious upbringing. However, the 2026 show draws a clearer line from religiosity and other elements of her family background as causal factors in who she is now. She digs into the roots of her problems, the effects of her problems on herself and on others, and various potential solutions with a wide range of efficacy. The breezy and confessional nature of her delivery is a layer on top of deeper analysis.
Bohart retains the high-status persona that she’s been honing for eight years, making her able to tackle ambitious subjects with confidence, remaining fully in charge of herself and the audience. She flashes rapidly between telling us about her worst traits, and pointing out that actually, she knows what she’s doing more than anybody else.
Her exposure of her own psychological difficulties and unsympathetic thoughts is raw and honest, even by the standards of stand-up these days, where raw honesty is all the rage. This comes at the cost of having a neat and resolved storyline, but the show is more complex and better for it.
That sort of thing only works when it’s funny, and luckily, this show is. The jokes are constant – even, and sometimes especially, in the darker parts. Bohart is good at putting in jokes that highlight, rather than undercutting, the pain in a story.
Simon Huxtable