Cambridge to enjoy a quadruple helping of Scott Bennett

Cambridge comedy fans can look forward to not one, not two, not three but four upcoming appearances by gifted Yorkshire-born comic Scott Bennett.

The first of these – coming later this month – is titled Blood Sugar Baby and tells the true story of how his daughter became ill with a rare genetic condition, while the second – Stuff – is Scott’s current touring show.

It is set to come to the city in October, and is already sold out, but will return again next year. All four shows will be at the Cambridge Junction.

“Doing two tours was an interesting decision,” says Scott, whom the Evening Standard once described as “without doubt live comedy’s best kept secret”, speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his home in Nottingham, “but we’re not doing them at the same time.”

He notes that Stuff is “more stand-up, there’s a loose theme of anti-consumerism and a quest for connection”.

The very different Blood Sugar Baby, on the other hand, is more of a narrative show – “which has a more defined arc, if you like, which is something I’ve never done before”.

Scott performed Stuff at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

“It’s some of my favourite routines,” he says of the show, “and what I love about it as well is it’s a little bit more interactive…

“It came from a point of I feel like as a society we’re consuming things solo now – a lot of algorithms and a lot of things that are targeted to us.

“And we seem to be equating happiness with what we accumulate, and I sort of questioned that and stepped back from it and thought, ‘I wonder if there are other things that I should be doing?’

“This show is me lost in the world of buying things and finding it very difficult to change, but having two young children who seem to be questioning me more about the planet and the future and how we live our lives, and I haven’t really got the answers.

“So that tends to be the thrust of the show, and what’s wonderful is when I’m doing these bits of stand-up, that people are relating to them in a different way, which is really nice.

“You’ve got that sense of community with it, something quite organic, which I love.”

Scott has also taken Blood Sugar Baby to Edinburgh.

“It connects with people on a different level, that one,” he observes, “and it’s nice to have the two very contrasting but very relatable shows that I’m doing this year.”

Blood Sugar Baby is about Scott’s eldest daughter, who suffered from a rare genetic condition, congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI), as a baby.

“The only reason I’m telling it now is because she’s 14 and she’s completely cured,” explains Scott, whose debut stand-up show, About a Roy, was nominated for the Amused Moose Comedy Award and was selected as one of the top 10 shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015.

“So there’s a bit of distance; I always feel like with comedy, there’s a very fine line… You can talk about anything but my rule is if you’re going through that thing, people don’t really want to laugh – they want to comfort you.

“I’ve seen it before where people have talked about divorce or separation when they’re in the middle of it, and the audience don’t feel comfortable enough to laugh.

“So it’s taken 14 years for me to have enough distance to go, ‘This story is so unique and so funny in places, and so unbelievable that I feel like it needs to be told’.

“It was a rare condition my daughter had from birth which was a genetic thing that affected one in a quarter of a million.

“It’s basically the story and the journey from us as parents: first child, bewildered, not really understanding the world and not really understanding what we were dealing with, to staying in hospitals for months and living out of carrier bags, to going on this insane quest that involved private jets and meeting celebrities, and eventually getting her cured with this silver bullet operation.”

Scott says he sought to tell the story of this “mad roller coaster”, an ultimately positive experience that he and his wife Jemma went through.

“I just wanted to tell the story in a funny way,” notes the likeable comedian, who first began performing stand-up in 2010, “because everyone’s been in hospital at some point, or been through something, and it feels a little bit taboo – and I wanted to break that down and say, ‘Look, this has happened to us and we’ve come through it’.

“And the fact that it’s a happy ending gives me licence to tell it, and I tell people that at the start so they relax – because otherwise they’re tense for an hour!

“So it’s a wonderful, bizarre story that people have really enjoyed.”

Scott will be bringing Blood Sugar Baby to the Cambridge Junction (J2) on Wednesday, 18 June.

He will then return with Stuff – this time to J3 – on Saturday, 11 October, before coming back again (to J2) with Stuff on Friday, 6 March, and Friday, 1 May 2026.

Tickets are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Scott, go to scottbennettcomedy.co.uk.