WATCH: Angela Barnes - where comedy and ADHD converge

“It's me with my ADHD brain. I got diagnosed in 2021 and it made sense. I have always been slightly chaotic and clumsy and forgetful and that was what the show was going to be about but then I got the diagnosis. And that was good. I was treated for 27 years for depression but I think I always knew that something else was going on. It's actually very helpful to have the diagnosis. It has made a big difference. Knowledge is power! If you know what's going on then you're better able to cope.”

The increase in diagnosis generally has led some people to talk about there being an ADHD epidemic – which is nonsense as far as Angela is concerned: “The idea that it never existed until now is just crazy. I think the difference is that people have now got the vocabulary to talk about it and to realise what is happening.

"Before that people had to talk about depression or mood disorders and you're made to feel like a failure. I think the fact is that a significant proportion of people are just not neurotypical. People talk about ADHD as if it is fashionable and that's just nonsense. I certainly would have called it fashionable when I was in my 20s being treated for severe depression.”

The point is that Angela is more than fine with the diagnosis: “You're getting a lot of comedians at the moment that are being diagnosed with ADHD and you can understand that. The ADHD brain needs dopamine, and performing live gives you the biggest dopamine hit you could ever imagine. And our routines as stand-ups are different every day. We're not trying to live within safe structures, and there's always been that saying about comedians being outsiders, the tears of a clown, that kind of thing.”

Angela lives in Brighton and has had a long association with it ever since going to university there back in 1996: “I have yo-yo’ed between Brighton and London but I've been living in Brighton now for some time. I was studying linguistics at the beginning at Sussex and after university I moved to London really because I didn't really know what to do next. I did a bit of temping and I went back to college again and I came back here in 2008, started doing stand-up in 2009 to 2010 and moved back to London for a bit because I couldn't afford a car. Travelling from Brighton was a bit expensive.”

It was her father’s death that prompted her to do stand-up: “I knew that I always wanted to do stand-up but I always struggled with confidence. I was always a big comedy nerd and I started to run a comedy night in Brighton and my dad always used to come along. And he always said to me that I should do it. He was always encouraging me and then he died very suddenly and it just made me realise that life is short and that I should really give it a go. The following year I did a comedy course at the Komedia. After he died there was a big sense if I don't do it now then I never will but one of the great sadnesses in in my life is that every time something good happens to me, he is not here to know about it and that is really sad.”

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