Men are significantly less likely to access traditional talking therapies, yet experience disproportionately poor mental health outcomes. The UK is emerging as a global frontrunner in addressing this gap by pairing the new Men’s Health Strategy with the world-first integration of comedy into public creative healthcare, with the NHS, called Comedy-on-Prescription.
Dr Simon Opher brings his "Simon Says, Let's Talk" podcast to SXSW London 2026. The panel will explore how comedy, creative health, and technology can complement traditional healthcare—spanning prevention, social prescribing, and scalable delivery—showing how culturally accessible interventions can improve wellbeing and be delivered at scale globally. It will also examine the wider positive effects of integrating comedy into national healthcare systems, including new paid, sustainable opportunities for creators amid AI-driven disruption to the comedy labour market.