Comedian educates on climate change in 'funny' way

A comedian has said he is speaking about climate change in his comedy, to educate people about the crisis in a "positive and funny way".

Stuart Goldsmith, from Totterdown, Bristol, has been a comedian for 20 years, after training at Circomedia as a street performer.

He has developed a climate change focused act to help get people engaged in the climate crisis and to deal with his own fears about it.

He said: "I started to feel like I have a responsibility to talk about this. I have a responsibility to say to people, that this is a frightening thing."

• Listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds.

He added that some people are “bored” of hearing about climate change, so he wanted to find a "new way" to engage with them.

"What we do in comedy is we talk about the problems," he told BBC Radio Bristol.

"During the pandemic, I became pretty glued to the news and I stopped letting myself off the hook with the climate crisis.

"I stopped letting myself think 'oh someone else will deal with that I'm sure' and I got really scared."

He said that by talking about the issue he is also "tackling" his own fear.

"There is a value of talking about the elephant in the room," he added.

He was dealing with these questions when he wrote the show Spoilers, which he took to the Edinburgh Fringe.

He involves the audience by asking them to speak about their "climate confessions" and the performance won "Best Show" in 2023.

He also set up Chops Comedy on North Street, a venue showcasing secret acts and local acts on Tuesday evenings.

"This is my job now, to try and use comedy to help direct people to just find out more about it," he said.

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