Hot topics

From pharmacy to comedy via a heart attack

Lubna Kerr is a Scottish-Pakistani pharmacist turned comedian who has spent years of touring the comedy circuit, including making regular Edinburgh Fringe appearances. She shares how a heart attack has contributed to her stand-up material…

Oct 30, 2024

Ben Lee

Editorial, Chemist + Druggist

From pharmacy to comedy via a heart attack

Like Be the first to like this

Have you ever thought of a career change later in life? For one pharmacist, she may have taken the phrase ‘laughter is the best medicine’ a little too seriously.

Edinburgh-based pharmacist, and now comedian, Lubna Kerr has been performing stand up and plays for over a decade after deciding to do something for herself.

“I’m spending all my life doing stuff for other people – what about me?” she says.

Divorce and 're-energising' herself

This realisation follows an extensive work history in healthcare, primarily with her 35 years’ experience as a hospital pharmacist.

Raised in Glasgow, Kerr did her pre-reg in community pharmacy before going on to do a PhD in Cardiff, and then moved up to Edinburgh to work in hospitals.

But alongside this, Kerr did outreach work to raise the awareness of diabetes, and this led to running outpatient cardiovascular risk clinics for ethnic minority patients.

After completing a master’s in clinical teaching and pharmacy at the University of Leeds in 2008, she set up a social enterprise health charity called The Centre of Health and Wellbeing to look at prevention of cardiovascular risk.

Her work included offering blood pressure checks and advising on healthy eating options, “almost like what occupational health is doing now, but I was ahead of the curve” she adds.

But after her divorce in 2010, this left Kerr with “more time to do what I wanted to” and started to plan her comedic and acting pursuits which “re-energised” her.

After her mother died in 2013, she wanted to do “something to help with the grieving process” and completed the Laughing Horse comedy course to push herself into the entertainment industry.

“It’s difficult because you’ve got a mortgage, children, and taking that leap is a really difficult thing to do. You don’t want to be in a position where you lose your house because you can’t afford to pay the mortgage, so it’s been a sensible approach.

Fringe regular

Her friends and family have been supportive, albeit her children thought “it would be something I’d grow out of” and it was just “a midlife crisis”, with her daughter even suggesting to “join a history class because you’ll meet old, educated men there”.

“11 years later I’m still doing it!” Kerr says proudly.

Since 2013, Kerr has been a regular on the Scottish comedy circuit and often performs at the Edinburgh Fringe festival after her debut in 2017 before her first solo show in 2018.

She’s an observational comedian and writes often about her own experiences, particularly about her Pakistani heritage.

“I feel a part of my role as a Pakistani woman here is, we get a lot of bad press and I think it’s my job to show that because we’re all brown doesn’t mean we’re all the same. I’ve got a foot in both camps because my parents were Pakistani, and I grew up in Scotland.

“These are unique and unheard stories that I’m doing, and you don’t see many Pakistani women on the comedy circuit. My role is educating people around the cultural differences but also the cultural similarities.”

Kerr has fond memories of growing up and seeing her comedic idols like Lucille Ball, who “was just amazing” inspires her writing, alongside the likes of Bob Hope, Michael Crawford, Billy Connolly and Tommy Cooper, and being around her parents watching Morecambe & Wise and The Two Ronnies.

She enjoys the “silly slapstick humour” of Miranda Hart’s sitcoms too, and ensures her comedy is something people “can relate to”.

'The C Word'

But a heart attack in 2016 was perhaps a sign for Kerr to continue with her comedic pursuits due to the circumstances of it.

Leading up to her first heart attack in the week, it happened on the way to writing her will.

“It’s comedy gold, isn’t it?! By the time I got to my lawyer’s office, I had this elephant sat on my chest but five minutes it lasted – no sweating, no shortness of breath, no nothing.”

She went charity shopping and out at night afterwards before going to work the next day. But the second one happened on the way into work the following week, as she got in with a 200bpm heart rate.

“Normally when I’m working on the wards, I’d go around with the consultant and team and they’re now coming to see me, having a laugh!”

The irony of running cardiovascular risk clinics at the time and having a heart attack herself is not lost on Kerr.

Lubna Kerr Glasgow — Kerr draws on her heart attack experience in her stand-up show 'The C Word'

“It was so embarrassing! I don’t smoke, drink, take drugs – I live a relatively healthy life, but it was stress.”

She did not go back to working at Edinburgh’s St Johns Hospital or continue running her social enterprise, and has since been doing one day a week running the cardiovascular risk clinics at Edinburgh Western General as she still loves “being with patients and I’m going to keep that going for as long as possible”.

But understanding what led her to a heart attack has helped provide some of the educational element to her material in her recent stand-up comedy show ‘The C Word’, as she had a stent put into her widow maker artery.

“All the descriptions are of men’s symptoms, even the widow’s artery, is assuming it’s a woman who’d going to be the widow. The textbooks were written by men, so one of things I talk about in ‘The C Word’ is that symptoms for a woman and a man for heart attacks are different, and it’s not highlighted.”

Kerr discusses, cars, children, cats, colonisation, climate and “any C words” she wants to tell stories about, such as gardening which she calls “creative cultivation”.

Pakistani pride and an Apollo dream

‘The C Word’ was last performed in Manchester at Corner Boy this month (October 12), and she then toured her 2024 Edinburgh Fringe play ‘Chatterbox’ at The Pleasance Theatre in London last week (October 24 and 25).

At the Fringe this year, ‘Chatterbox’ sold 300 more tickets than the show Kerr did last year, as the play is the second in a planned trilogy. ‘Chatterbox’ is about bullying and “primary school life, the labels that you’re given and the impact it has on you”.

The first in the trilogy ‘Tickbox’ is about the journey made by her parents from Pakistan to Glasgow as her father got a scholarship to study for a PhD in chemistry, with the third play to be called ‘Lunchbox’ which will be about her secondary school experience.

Kerr says the plays she writes are “a mixture of drama and comedy because there’s such serious topics about race, migration and discrimination so I lace [it] with humour”.

She says the topic of bullying that comes up in her shows is “something that everybody can relate” as “children are still getting bullied at school and getting bullied as adults – I get bullied in the NHS and it’s horrible.”

Having been on the circuit for over a decade, Kerr thinks representation of South Asian women is “definitely getting better” in comedy as when she started “there was very few”, but now she sees “lots of much younger, brown comedians which is great”.

But being in Edinburgh has its challenges for Kerr too, as access to gigs is “why so many people move to London”, but she wants a comedy management team so someone can promote her more.

“I see all the television shows and I could do that, I’m as funny as them. Why am I not there?”

But with appearances on TV already in BBC shows Two Doors Down and Scot Squad, as well as hosting the BBC Asian Network Comedy Nights this year, Kerr would love to get her recent shows on television or streaming, partly because she feels “this burden of responsibility as a Pakistani to educate people in the world.”

“The goal is to get [on] Live at the Apollo, and then to have my own Netflix, Amazon, or BBC specials.”

“I’m juggling being a pharmacist, being a mum, being a comedian, being a playwright, being an actor, but I really enjoy it.”