Hitting the right notes

Abuse, estrangement, eating disorders, prison, Asperger’s … Robert White had a lot on his plate before he started with the comedy and music. Ahead of tonight’s Gala for Mental Health, he shares some formative experiences with Jay Richardson

It’s not unknown to see comedians with notes scrawled on their bodies. But those on Robert White’s hands are not a set list but basic instructions on how to be a performer.

“Can die” reminds him that it’s OK if a show goes badly. But also, conversely, not to let the show go badly. “No mental” means “don’t go mental, don’t get caught by the demons in your head”. There’s also “Keep on, just do”. And a clock equalling a pound sign, telling him to complete his allotted time in order to get paid.

Additional notes, on specific fingers, instruct him not to swear or concern himself with groans for his puns, to smile, to be nice, not to be rude, to be humble and “character”, which abbreviates “remember you’re not you, you’re a characterisation of you”.

There’s a second entry of “Keep on, just do”. And on the back of his hand he has “Messy rapport”, reminding him to ignore all the other rules if need be. “Don’t be so stringently tied up in everything that you can’t be fluid… if you build a rapport with the audience, you’ve got places to go and a place to go back to”.

This carefully applied ink is crucial help for White, who has Asperger’s syndrome, in maintaining his calm at the start of a show. “It’s to make up for me not having innate social skills” he explains.

On stage, he’s a jack in the box of nervous tics, left-field humour and fizzing creativity. But despite a difficult, lonely childhood and countless sackings from jobs, he was only diagnosed with Asperger’s in 2001 after spending three months in prison. He’s briefly referenced the inexplicable events that led to his incarceration before. But now the musical comic has turned them into INSTRUMENTAL, a fully orchestrated, mini electro-classical opera in which he plays the piano and other instruments over prerecorded backing tracks.

Having suffered “a bit of a mental breakdown … with no help, no assistance at all … just the most mental you could ever be” after the end of a relationship, for reasons he can’t explain, he resolved to put on a bizarre costume and visit his ex at work with the express intention of playing a practical joke. Unfortunately, this did not go to plan and the police sought to charge him with armed robbery. After a plea bargain, this became attempting to threaten with an imitation firearm. He was sent to Wandsworth Prison, the UK’S largest, frequently cited as the worst for its treatment of inmates.

Maintaining his innocence, White suggests that young

0 Comedian Robert White has turned incidents from his life into Instrume police officers, eager “to get as many brownie points as possible” couldn’t differentiate between “a deliberate act rather than someone who was acting”, failing in their duty to identify him as a “vulnerable” person, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Further,theywere“slightlyhomophobic” he alleges.

Asecond storyline in INSTRUMENTAL picks up on White’s struggles with his sexuality and the female “beard” who was once his girlfriend. “I didn’t want to be gay, she asked me out and I said yes because it was a way of not being gay,” he recalls. “She was quite attractive and I was a highly odd, overweight person who thought ‘Why would anyone want to go out with me?’” Although she humiliated, physically and mentally abused him, he stayed with her for a while so he could avoid accepting his sexuality.

These dreadful experiences, coupled with his dyslexia, bouts of depression and an eating disorder, plus the sometime estrangement of his family, meant that “the hell of prison wasn’t as apparent as you might imagine”. Notwithstanding the terrible food, being confined over Christmas and the “evil” sadism of some of the guards, “my life was so broken down that prison wasn’t the worst of it.

“Once I’d been there a while, a lot of my mental issues subsided,” he adds. “The older I’ve gotten and the more things have come on top of each other, the more others were normalised. A lot of my very, very autistic traits and bulimia became habitual and everyday because other things were catastrophically worse.”

Music helped. “Once my mum sent in a Walkman and music tapes, it became a bit like college or university because I was writing music too,” he recalls. “Prison is vicious for social, active people. But at school I isolated myself so I’ve gotten good at living in my own head.”

One of his prison compositions now features in INSTRUMENTAL as an unstated theme. And while the first