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Promotional art for The Great Depresh
Cover image credit: via TMDB

The Great Depresh

Gary Gulman

HBO · 2019

A stand-up comedy special about surviving clinical depression.

Watch it free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Gary Gulman spends a portion of his 2019 hour explaining why eating ice cream with a fork is a reliable diagnostic indicator of clinical depression. It is the kind of hyper-specific, mundane observation that has defined his comedy for decades, but here it serves a much heavier purpose. Rather than sticking to the safe, highly polished observational writing that made him a late-night favorite, Gulman uses this performance to chronicle the severe mental health crisis that took him off the road and nearly ended his career.

Filmed at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, the 75-minute HBO release represents a sharp pivot for a comedian who had spent twenty-five years avoiding personal vulnerability on stage. The set is structured around his recovery from a debilitating depressive episode that forced him to move back in with his mother in Massachusetts. It features a mix of traditional stand-up and documentary interludes directed by Michael Bonfiglio, featuring conversations with Gulman’s wife, mother, and psychiatrist. This structure risks breaking the comedic momentum, but Gulman’s precision writing keeps the show grounded.

The strongest material comes from the absurdity of his hospitalization, including a bit about being recognized by a fellow patient in the psychiatric ward and another about the tragic hopelessness of a psych-ward art class. He also defends millennials against his generation’s lazy criticisms, contrasting their emotional literacy with his own repressed upbringing. The hybrid format earned widespread critical praise for finding genuine levity in electroconvulsive therapy without turning the performance into a somber lecture.

The set list

6 bits

  1. Eating ice cream with a fork

    Explaining that using a fork to eat ice cream was not an eccentric quirk, but a symptom of profound depression where he lacked the energy to wash a spoon or shower.

  2. 1970s depression and antidepressants

    Joking that children in the 1970s had access only to antidepressants like 'snap out of it' and the second-leading brand, 'what have you got to be depressed about?'

  3. Saved from suicide by hatred of writing essays

    Suggesting that his extreme aversion to essay writing spared him from suicide because he could not bear having to draft a suicide note.

  4. 1980s child abduction paranoia on milk cartons

    Recalling staring at missing children on milk cartons while eating lunch and wondering why adults expected a six-year-old child to solve horrific abductions.

  5. Millennials and hydration vs. 1970s masculinity

    Praising millennials for being kinder than older generations because they were properly hydrated, while contrasting his youth where masculinity was limited to Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons.

  6. Getting recognized in a psychiatric ward

    Recounting being recognized by a fellow psychiatric inpatient who asked, 'Are you Gary Gulman or am I crazy?'

How it plays

Tone
Warm, affirming, vulnerable, dark, poignant, and uplifting.
On stage
Towering 6'6" presence, knowing, infectious smile, sly observational wit, deeply self-deprecating yet remarkably generous and open.
Pace
Deliberate and comfortable sustaining serious, quiet narrative stretches without rushing to punchlines, contrasting past anxious tension with hard-won ease.
About
clinical depression and recovery, psychiatric hospitalization and therapy, antidepressant medication and ECT, childhood in the 1970s and 1980s, toxic masculinity, generational hydration and parenting

What the critics said

Acclaimed as a transcendent, deeply funny, and moving hybrid of documentary and stand-up that refutes the notion that comedy must be self-harming to address trauma.

In the room: Supportive and engaged in the live Brooklyn taping, contrasted with early documentary footage showing him visibly shaking and bombing while starting to open up about his illness.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: lbbonline.com, thefutoncritic.com, radicalmedia.com, hbomax.com, vulture.com, nytimes.com, bostonglobe.com, thedailybeast.com, imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, wgbh.org, vanyaland.com.

Backstory

Details Gulman's severe, multi-year clinical depression, suicidal ideation, and 2017 hospitalization, during which he moved back into his childhood bedroom in Massachusetts before recovering via therapy, medications, and electroconvulsive therapy.

Details

Released
Taped
Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn
Where
HBO
Director
Michael Bonfiglio
Topics
Before
It's About Time (2016)
After
Born on 3rd Base (2023)

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