GP receptionists working for the NHS have become something of a talking point in recent years – punchlines at best, punching bags at worst. Written and performed by a real GP receptionist, Holly Gow’s How Can’t I Help? both embraces and pokes fun at the stereotypes receptionists deal with as she recounts her day, being constantly interrupted by phone calls and rude patients, and haunted by a bloke called Gary with a case of the man flu.
The title of How Can’t I Help? reflects exactly what Gow feels throughout her day at work – on the surface, smiling and asking how best she can help, while deep down wanting to throttle the next person to ask her for an appointment that simply doesn’t exist, often accusing her of ‘gatekeeping’ when she doesn’t offer them anything. Gow carefully walks the line of leaning into the stereotypes that surround GP receptionists without truly validating them – she is frustrated and a little judgemental, and sometimes unable to help, but it’s never as personal as patients seem to assume it to be, and never (or – almost never) because she doesn’t want to.
Gow herself is an engaging and rather endearing performer, which helps – she makes for a great storyteller, crafting each character with humorous impressions of them all. Her body language and especially her facial expressions really sell each one (as well as her contempt for some of them!). The comedic parts hit well, provoking ripples of laughter from her audience, particularly when she addresses some of them as though they were her patients. So too do the moments of weight, as she discusses the impact of Covid and government mismanagement in her workplace.
While How Can’t I Help? may not be the most side-splitting offering at the Edinburgh Fringe, it makes for an entertaining watch, seeking to humanise those working in one of Britain’s most maligned roles. It is not an outright condemnation of anyone – not Gow, nor the patients she helps – and so functions as a frustrated but affectionate and humorously self-deprecating look at the state of our modern National Health Service.
